As intended, the colourless concrete conurbation of Kraków's Nowa Huta district is the direct antithesis of the city's Old Town. Ornate architecture, cobbled lanes and tourist crowds? Not here.

Raising the Behemoth: The Building of Nowa Huta

Funded by the Soviet Union, Nowa Huta swallowed up a huge swathe of ideal agricultural land, and the ancient village of Kościelniki (as well as parts of Mogiła and Krzesławice) in an attempt to create an in-your-face proletarian opponent to intellectual, artsy-fartsy, fairytale Kraków . Though today a separate district and suburb of Kraków, Nowa Huta was conceived as a separate city entirely, completely self-sufficient and intended to be superior to its neighbour. The decision to build NH was rubber stamped on May 17, 1947 and over the next few years construction on the 'model city' for 100,000 people proceeded at breakneck speed. Built to impress, Nowa Huta featured wide, tree-lined avenues, parks, lakes and the officially sanctioned architectural style of the time - Socialist Realism . Nowa Huta’s architects strove to construct the ideal city, with ironic inspiration coming from the neighbourhood blocks built in 1920s New York (that decadent and despicable western metropolis). Careful planning was key, and the city was designed with ‘ efficient mutual control ' in mind: wide streets would prevent the spread of fire, the profusion of trees would help absorb a nuclear blast, an immense system of underground bunkers and tunnels could shelter the entire area's population, and the urban layout allowed for the city to be easily turned into a fortress if it came under attack.

 

Work on the first block of flats began on June 23, 1949 (today a plaque found at ul. Mierzwy 14 commemorates the event), and volunteer workers flocked from across Poland to take part in the bold vision of such a massive project. Feats of personal sacrifice were rife and officially encouraged with one man, Piotr Ożański, becoming a folk hero when his team of 12 men was lavished with praise by the Party for laying a stupendous 66,232 bricks in one 8-hour shift (Ożanski would later serve as inspiration for the central character of Andrzej Wajda 's famous film, 'Man of Marble' (Człoweik z Marmuru) ). For the builders of Nowa Huta, however, life was tough; many were still sleeping in tents when the first winter arrived, and crime was rampant. Legends abounded of bodies being buried in foundations, and night was positively dangerous in a country still reeling from the chaos of World War II. Once inhabitable, the citizens of Nowa Huta's  proletariat paradise would take meaning from their daily work contributions in the ‘ Lenin Steelworks ,’ of course. As with the entire city of Nowa Huta, the reasons for building a steel mill here were mostly ideological, since local demand for steel was small, coal had to be brought in all the way from Silesia , and iron ore had to be impractically transported from the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, work began in April 1950, and by 1954 the first blast furnace was in operation. Employing some 40,000 people in its heyday the ‘Lenin Steelworks’ were capable of producing seven million tonnes of steel annually, and boasted the largest blast furnace in Europe . Such was its reputation that Fidel Castro chose to visit the Steelworks rather than Kraków’s market square on one state visit to Poland. As monumental as residential Nowa Huta may seem, it simply pales in comparison to the 1000 hectare Steelworks complex , which includes multi-storey melting ladles and halls large enough to fit Krakow’s market square several times over. Officially called ‘ ArcelorMittal Poland ’ today, the Steelworks still employs about 3500, but doesn’t play the central role in the life of the district it once did. Though erected in record time, somewhat sadly perhaps the utopian dream that was Nowa Huta was never fully realised . A fearsome Town Hall in the style of the renaissance ' ratuszes ' found across Poland was never built, nor was the theatre building across from it, and the ornamental architectural details planned for the monumental buildings of Plac Centralny were never added. However what was completed is very much worth the trip for intrepid tourists willing to teleport themselves into a completely different reality far from the cobbled kitsch of Kraków; it’s as easy as a tram ride.