Before Hitler embarked on his crazed campaign to expand Germany’s borders Breslau – or what you know now as Wrocław – stood out as one of Central Europe’s finest cities; a compelling mix of architectural styles set to a background of gothic spires and tinkling rivers. ‘Give me ten years and you will not recognize Germany’, asserted the Austrian dictator when he first came to power, and how right he was proved. Holding out to the very last, Breslau was the last major German city to capitulate, with both the city and her habitants paying dearly for such obstinate resistance. By the time the white flag was raised little remained of a city that had been mercilessly besieged by the Red Army for the previous four months. The scene that greeted the victors as they rolled into town was apocalyptic; seventy per cent of the city lay in total ruin, with the Old Town sustaining ninety per cent total damage. Of 30,000 registered buildings that stood before the war, only 8,400 were left standing. Nearly half the roads were impassable, and public utilities such as water, electricity and gas practically ceased to function. Breslau was little more than a sea of bricks, 18 million cubic metres of rubble covering what had once been a jewel on the River Oder.

The material and economic cost was immense, the human cost incalculable. The siege had cost the lives of 170,000 civilians, and little sympathy was afforded to those that survived. Soviet revenge was swift and brutal, with reprisals against the German population going largely unchecked. Fuelled by alcohol, drunken bands of Soviet soldiers rampaged across the city, dispensing instant justice to those who resisted their looting and rape. Trapped in Dante-style anarchy Breslau had reached its lowest point, the city lost in human catastrophe.

So it was into this hellish vision that the new Polish settlers arrived. The Yalta Conference of February, 1945 effectively saw Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt play Monopoly with Europe before carving her up like a stuck pig. Under terms agreed by the Big Three Poland’s pre-war borders would shift westwards, meaning that overnight what had been the German city of Breslau would become the Polish city of Wrocław. Within days of the Nazi surrender Poles started making their way to the city, with the pre-elected Mayor Bolesław Drobner arriving on May 9. Over the coming months he would be joined by thousands of displaced from their homes in the east.

An intensive policy of ‘de-Germanization’ was undertaken the moment the final shots were fired, with absolutely anything that hinted of the city’s previous incarnation as Breslau destroyed; the statue of Kaiser Wilhelm I which stood on Świdnicka was pulled down in October 1945, a fate that was to later be shared by the fearsome post office building, a splendid structure with a history from 1888. Deportations of the local German population commenced in July 1945, and by the beginning of 1948 only 3,000 remained in the city, essentially employed to train Poles in the professional arena. The year was to prove something of a landmark for Wrocław with city leaders launching a series of high-profile events to show the world how far the new city of Wrocław had progressed. The International Congress of Intellectuals, for instance, drew a crowd that included Picasso, Graham Greene, Bertolt Brecht and Irene Joliot-Curie. However, the biggest event of the year was to be The Exhibition of the Recovered Territories, an anti-imperialist extravaganza aimed at highlighting the glories of Brave New Poland. The exhibition was to take place in Max Berg’s Hala Ludowa, though organizers were concerned this German building would over-shadow the very aim of the show. In a bid to outdo it Stanisław Hempel was commissioned to create a structure that would steal the headlines. The result was a 106 metre spire which still stands soaring into the sky like a great big needle. Weighing 44 tonnes and consisting of 12 separate segments the work, known locally as Iglica, was erected on July 3, 1948. Alas, drama was lurking around the corner. On July 22 Wrocław was hit by violent storms, and eight mirrors positioned atop of the tower were severely damaged, threatening to smash into the crowds visiting the exhibition below. Several ideas were touted to remove this menace, with local officials suggesting the use of snipers to shoot the mirrors down, or even using a hot air balloon to hover overhead while some poor berk plucked the shards off. Following weeks of debate two students from Kraków were brought in to scale the structure. Setting out on the morning of October 15 their attempt was immediately thwarted by bad weather, leaving the heroic spidermen stranded halfway up. They refused to back down and, cheered on by a crowd of thousands down below, eventually succeeded in their mission, finally touching base again the following evening. Oddly, the needle has since had ten metres shaved off its height, and currently stands at 96 metres.

The exhibition itself was to prove a roaring success. Officially opened by President Bolesław Bierut it attracted over a million and a half visitors, the bulk of whom were left marveling at the stirring, patriotic displays. However the exhibition closed on October 31, 1948, and with it Wrocław was forgotten. With the celebrities and big names gone the construction efforts dried up, and the city was transformed into a feeder city for Warsaw. While the exhibition had made a great deal of promoting Wrocław as a true Polish city higher powers thought different, and from 1948 onwards its primary purpose was to provide the devastated capital with rebuilding materials. Each day two hundred thousand bricks would leave Wrocław, a number that would later grow to a staggering one million. Historic buildings that had survived the war weren’t spared either, with some reports claiming ancient stretches of the city walls were demolished to aid the Warsaw rebuilding program.

That early Wrocław didn’t stagnate and die can be directly attributed to the influx of Poles who had chosen to settle here in the post-war years. Lured by the promise of grandiose villas and unimaginable wealth hundreds of thousands of settlers arrived from Poland’s eastern territories, including a sizeable proportion from what is now the Ukrainian city of Lviv (Polish Lwów) with estimates suggesting as many as 10% of Wroclaw’s new habitants hailed from there. They soon realized they had been sold anything but a dream, but remained nonetheless, determined to rebuild the city from scratch. One of the earliest such examples of new look Wrocław can be found at the University of Technology on (I-4) ul. Łukasiewicza 7-9. Designed by Andrzej Frydecki – himself a Lwów exile – this building was constructed between 1949 and 1953, and is unique for being one of the few post-war buildings in Poland that was built without adhering to the Socialist Realist style.

Indeed, while architects in post-war Poland had a blank sheet to work with it was very much a case of ‘you can have any colour so long as it’s black’. The buzzword of the time was Socialist Realism, a severe artistic style following strict guidelines from a Soviet masterplan – one which architects were not allowed to deviate from. The most prominent example of this uniquely Stalinist style is the Kościuszko Housing Estate (A-5, Pl. Kościuszki) found straddling the no-man’s land between the old town and the train station. Looking marvellously austere, and loosely modelled on Warsaw’s Pl. Konstytcuji, this was one of the first ‘new’ housing districts to be built in the wake of the war. Constructed between 1953 and 1956, and built to a design sketched by Roman Tunikowski, the uniform granite buildings have a simple classicist form, and were designed to honour both patriotic and socialist ideals. However, there was more to the Socialist Realist style than met the eye. Meticulous planning was key, and these housing estates were designed with ‘efficient mutual control’ in mind – wide streets would prevent the spread of fire, the profusion of trees would supposedly soak up an atomic blast, while the layout was such that the complex could easily be turned into a fortress if it came under attack.

More examples of this Orwellian style are to be found on the Utopian sounding Pl. Młodzieżowy development (Youth Square). Comprising of (B-3) ul. Szewska, Świdnicka and Oławska this development was designed to introduce more space to what had been – prior to WWII destruction – a tight tangle of medieval streets leading to the main square. Courtyards, gardens and wide boulevards were introduced, the overall result of which was the creation of a pleasant set of user-friendly streets that today fit seamlessly with the neighboring Old Town.

So, what of the Old Town? Practically annihilated by the Soviet fury of 1945 the decision to rebuild the area came as something of a surprise, especially considering the concrete monsters that were shooting up everywhere else. Work began in 1953, and would continue for another nine years; led by Marcin Bukowski and Emil Kaliski the architects working on this project weren’t unknown to use a little artistic license. Citing ideological and anti-German sentiments they refused to reconstruct any of the 19th and 20th century buildings, instead choosing to give the Old Town an overwhelmingly Baroque look, utterly different to how it would have appeared a couple of decades previously. Reconstructed burgher houses once adorned with German motifs and mottos were given a Polish language makeover, while historic houses that hadn’t been alive for hundreds of years wereresurrected from the grave, and built once more to designs detailed in recovered manuscripts and watercolours. By the same rule, buildings inexorably linked to the German past were condemned to memory. On top of this, the architects involved were not nearly as thorough as first impressions suggest. While the structures that occupy the streets of Old Town imply the buildings were rebuilt to the last detail this is in actual fact far from the truth. From the beginning it was intended that the Old Town be turned into a residential area for the rank and prole, and as such many of the buildings that you see are in fact little more than socialist, utilitarian blocks that have been graced with fancy Dan townhouse façades. Nonetheless, the results are magnificent, and todayWrocław’s historic centre stands out as one of the most beautiful in Central Europe – no mean feat.

The next step for Wrocław coincided with the death of Comrade Stalin. With that menace out of the way local architects were finally able to pursue their own ideas and let the imagination run riot. The results were nuts, and today you’ll find Wrocław swaddled with some of the most bizarre examples of sixties thinking you’d care to imagine. Take for instance the Igloo building (ul. Moniuszki 33). Built between 1960 and 1963 this dome shaped house was inspired by the obsession with the Space Age and can’t help but bring to mind an episode of The Jetsons. Designed by Witold Lipiński this is a true architectural masterpiece, and still used as a home by his wife. You’ll find more works by Lipiński cropping up if you visit the area close to the Soviet Cemetery. Take a couple of wrong turns and blind bends and you may find yourself on the corner of ul. Wyścigowa and Turniejowa; it’s here you’ll view another classic project from our protagonist – the Mushroom, a 110m² house that doesn’t look too dissimilar from an overgrown military bunker. This is clearly a man worth investigating, though for his seminal work you’ll have to get the pickaxe out and point your compass towards the summit of Mount Śnieżka, home to a flying saucerstyle contraption that doubles as an observatory.

More space oddities can be found closer to town, the most famous being the Racławica Panorama (C-3, ul. Purkyniego 11). Designed in 1957 by Ewa and Marek Dziekońscy their controversial project was picked as the winning entry in a competition to find a home for one of Poland’s best loved paintings. Inspired by the brutalist style of Le Corbusier this weird, frankly horrid, rotunda makes use of plenty of ferroconcrete and was allegedly hailed as something of an engineering masterpiece when it was first unveiled. However, while the building was ready in 1967, the communists weren’t. Concerned that the painting (see What to See section) was too nationalistic the local reds kept it hidden from the public view until 1985, making the building somewhat of a white elephant. To the north eastern edge of the Old Town check out (B-3) Pl. Nowy Targ for a taste of what commie town planners get up to when they’re handed carte blanche. The work of Włodimierz Czerchowski this concrete square was realized between 1957 and 1964, with the surrounding buildings sketched in to house 4,000 people. Czerchowski and his team did their best to honour the pre-war street plan, as well as attempting to make the district entirely self-sufficient; schools, shops, kindergartens and cinemas were all lined up for this area, with the intention that it would become a tightly-knit community of well-behaved communists. In reality however a lack of funds meant many of the bright ideas never left the blueprint, and to this day residents are still patiently waiting for the promised  fountains and aesthetic extras to materialize.

Another project affected by Poland’s looming financial crisis was the set of buildings found out in the student ghetto on (D-3/4) Pl. Grunwaldzki 4-16. The brainchild of Jadwiga Grabowska- Hawrylak and Krzysztof Sąsiadek these 16 storey towers are a supreme example of the bold concrete wisdom of the time, with their signature being barmy porthole windows. However, the white concrete which the architects had originally envisaged never made the final cut, and neither did the creepers which were meant to cover the buildings from head to foot; nowadays these buildings, once considered the height of architectural genius, stand on the horizon like rusting, rotting corpses, waiting for a bomb to make things better. Frankly, all they need is a good scrub, a prize recently awarded to their next door neighbour on (D-3/4) Pl. Grunwaldzki 2-4. Functioning as the Mathematical Institute this weirdo was awarded top spot in Wrocław’s Building of the Year competition in 1971. Unfortunately, the clean-up job on this little star proved so proficient that many of the original details were covered over. Fortunately there’s more architectural atrocities to view in the centre, namely the Zeto building on (A-3) Pl. Ofiar Oświęcimskich 7-13. Built between 1965 and 1969 this place was lauded as a symbol of Wrocław’s ambition and advancement, and when it opened this chess-board coloured stranger was designated as the home of Wrocław’s first three computers – in fact, hopes were high that would herald Wrocław’s status as the Silicon Valley of Poland. That never happened, predictably enough, but what did was far more spectacular. Regardless of the handicaps and hurdles the city had refused to die, and on the contrary, had developed to become one of the nation’s most important, and best loved,  major urban centres. Wrocław had risen.