Meeting Modernisms in Gdynia
Meeting Modernisms in Gdynia

Summary/Abstract: Gdynia is a particular place, where, in less than twenty years, political will and Modernism have transformed a small fishing village into a large modern seaport city – Poland’s “window to the world.” Although it was not the only modernist city built in Europe between the two World Wars, Gdynia is exemplary for the “extent to which Modernism was assimilated and absorbed,” reaching a dominant position and determining the face of the city. This makes the city stand out from the rest of Poland. In an incredible way, Gdynia’s architecture and planning resisted German occupation, the destructions of the war, successive demographic waves, political changes and the new post-1989 economic pressures. Its inhabitants – including investors, scholars and general public – succeeded in developing a strong community spirit around Modernism, giving rise to strategies of conservation that are carefully integrated into present and future urban policies. Nowadays, the white city of the 1930s became a vivid “platform for Modernism.”

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