Gdynia

Gdynia is a unique city that arouses particular interest of architects due to its homogeneous architecture. The city, basing on the structure of an earlier fishing village, was entirely designed and built from scratch in the interwar period, as was the case later for cities such as Brasilia and Chandigarh.

Gdynia as a modern port town together with Gdańsk – the city of amber and Sopot, which is a world seaside resort, and with some smaller and less known towns forms a metropolitan area off the coast of the Baltic Sea: the Tri-City. Gdańsk, with its historic centre of the Hanseatic city of Gdańsk (Hansestadt Danzig), completely destroyed after World War II and then rebuilt as Polish Gdańsk, is a bright example of reconstruction made in Poland. Sopot is considered a museum of architecture from the turn of the centuries, full of Art Nouveau villas and nostalgic baths, Gdynia, in turn, is a city of avant-garde modernism from the 1920s and 1930s. Thus, the Tri-City combines three great trends of the 20th century which are a source of fundamental debates among architects.

This architectural guide is an excerpt from a broader publication Architekturführer Danzig: Gdańsk Sopot Gdynia concerning the Tri-City metropolitan region and presents a modern and unique city of Gdynia in the form of 8 trips / city walks. The couple of authors go on a tour around Gdynia presenting about 80 buildings and projects. Professional descriptions of architecture examples structures, an extensive collection of plans and photographs as well as trips to particularly interesting architectural sights are an ideal help in getting to know the city.