Architecturally speaking the city is a concrete brute, owing much of its aesthetics to the brash design plans employed by a number of nutters in the post-war decades. For Katowice the post-war peace meant one thing – a huge remodelling of the city. The buzzword for architects in this part of the world was Socialist Realism, which basically involved building simple, monumental structures. A great example of this is the fearsome edifice that once served as the former seat of the Trade Union Council on ul. Dąbrowskiego. Impressive as this is, nothing comes close to beating the Planetarium on ul. Parkowa 25. The death of Comrade Stalin marked a shift in architectural styles and the city planning office found itself employing a number of graduates from the Kraków Technical School, all of them inspired by the late modernist style that was all the rage in the west. So it was in the 1960s and 1970s that Katowice as we know it really took shape, with several 19th century tenements ripped down to make way for these architects' bold new visions. One would have thought that much of Katowice’s development was the work of a man with a serious grudge against the city. Nothing could be further from the truth. The city saw a wad of public funds siphoned its way courtesy of First Secretary Edward Gierek, himself a former habitant of the region. Taking on a mass of foreign loans Gierek was desperate to modernise Poland and bring it in line with the western world. Katowice had the pleasure of being foremost in his mind, so much so that in the 1970s a highway was built to connect Warsaw with Katowice, primarily to make his journey time shorter.

Of all the monstrosities that were erected in the 60s and 70s, the one that can’t be avoided by travellers is the train station. Sixteen reinforced concrete ‘chalices’ were built to support the ceiling – a groundbreaking innovation – and the station was designed to hold 25,000 people. Today it looks rubbish; a nasty concrete block that smells of tramps. Amazingly, opinion is divided as to its future. Plans have been mooted to rebuild it from scratch, though the Art History Department of the Silesian University has weighed in with a bid to save and restore it: so far their petition has attracted the signatures of 150 architects from around the globe.

Head straight across from the station and you’ll find the Rynek (market square). In Poland the very word Rynek conjures images of cobbled squares lined with colourful burgher houses; not so in Katowice. In 1959 a decision was taken to rebuild the square, which had only suffered superficial war damage, with the plan including two shopping centres: you’ll see them for yourself in the shape of the Zenit building (1962), and the weird Skarbek (1974), whose key feature is absolutely no natural light. Walk further to view the Superjednosta residential block at number 16-32. With 16 floors to its credit, and a span of 187 metres, this was the largest housing project in Poland when it was completed, with some 1,300 people crammed into it. It’s not the only residential development of note. This must be the only city in the world whose denizens have the option of living in cobs of corn or inside a star. Built in 1975 to the design of Buszko and Franta head to Osiedle Tysiąclecia to marvel at five 25 storey buildings whose rounded balconies give the structures the appearance of corn. Don’t think the weird minds of Buszko and Franta were happy to settle with that. In 1978 came their Osiedle Gwiazdy; make haste to ul. Roździeńskiego to wonder among seven tower blocks whose bases are set out like octagonal pointed stars.