Nowa Huta (literally New Steel Mill) - is the easternmost district of Kraków. With more than 200 000 inhabitants it is one of the most populous areas of the city.

Aleja Róż and 1950s architecture

Industry

• Huta im. Tadeusza Sendzimira (steel mill)
• Elektrociepłownia Kraków (power plant)
• Philip Morris (cigarettes)

History

Nowa Huta was started in 1949 as a separate town near Kraków. It was planned as a huge centre of heavy industry. The town was to become an ideal town for the communist authorities and was to be populated with industry workers mostly. In 1951 it was joined with Kraków as a separate district and the following year tramway communication was started.

On July 22, 1954 the Lenin Steel Works were opened and in less than 20 years the factory became the biggest steel mill in Poland. In the 1960s the city grew rapidly. The monumental architecture of the Central Square (Plac Centralny) was surrounded by huge blocks of flats. In the 1970s the steel production reached 7 millions tonnes of steel yearly. At the same time the biggest tobacco factory in Poland was opened and a huge cement factory.

The reasons for building such an industrial town near Kraków were mostly ideological and were against laws of economy (both the coal and iron ore had to be transported from Silesia, and the products were shipped to other parts of Poland since local demand was relatively small). This became visible in the 1980s, when the economical crisis halted the city's growth. However, the remaining industry is a constant threat both to historical monuments of the Kraków old town and to city's inhabitants.

Currently the monumental socrealist centre is considered a monument of architecture.

Landmarks

pre-1949

• Wanda Mound (8th century)
• cistercian abbey (1225)
• Jan Matejko manor in Krzesławice
• Branice manor
• St. Wacław's Church (1226)
• St. Bartholomew Church (1466)

post-1949

• Tadeusz Sendzimir Steel Mill (formerly Lenin Steel Works)
• Plac Centralny and Aleja Róż architecture
• Arka Pana Church in Bieńczyce

See also:

• Kraków