Gdynia Modernist City Centre as a UNESCO World Urban Heritage

2026

2(86)

Maria Jolanta Sołtysik*

Gdynia Modernist City Centre

as a UNESCO World Urban Heritage

DOI: 10.37190/arc260203

Published in open access. CC BY-NC license.

Abstract

The subject of this article is the Modernist Centre of Gdynia as a UNESCO World Heritage urban site. The study was undertaken as part of the

application to inscribe Gdynia City Centre on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The aim of the research conducted by the author between 2022 and

2025 was to assess the signicance of this complex in the history of global urban planning and architecture, and in particular to formulate and document

a statement regarding its Outstanding Universal Value, identify its main attributes, and propose criteria for its inscription on the List. The study was

carried out using a historical-comparative method, based on both the relevant literature and the author’s own analytical research. The ndings indicate

that Gdynia Modernist City Centre is an outstanding example of a downtown area built from scratch in the interwar period, illustrating the fundamental

changes that this era brought to Modernism. This provides the basis for its nomination to the UNESCO World Heritage List under Criterion IV as an

outstanding illustration of a signicant stage in human history.

Key words: UNESCO, Gdynia, City Centre, Modernism, urban heritage

Introduction

The urban complex of Gdynia City Centre took shape in

the 1920s and 1930s, that is during the formative phase of

Modernism. This period brought about fundamental chang-

es in the elds of urban planning and architecture, a fact

that is particularly evident in Gdynia. In recognition of the

historical value of the spatial layout of its City Centre, the

complex was listed in the register of monuments in 2007;

in 2015 it was granted the status of a Historic Monument

(Rozporządzenie Prezydenta RP… 2015), and in 2019 the

city began eorts to have it inscribed on the UNESCO

World Heritage List.

At the same time as the UNESCO World Heritage Com-

mittee accepted Gdynia’s preliminary nomination onto the

“tentative list”

, work began at Gdynia City Council on

ORCID:

0000-0003-0826-1734. Faculty of Architecture, Gdańsk

University of Technology, Poland, e-mail: maria.soltysik@pg.edu.pl

Gdynia was added to the “waiting list”, known as the “Tentative

List”, on 26 October 2019, following a nomination entitled “Modernist

Centre of Gdynia – the example of building an integrated community”.

preparing a comprehensive application for inscription

. In

July 2022, the author of this article was invited to collabo-

rate on this research, in order to give the work a new direc-

tion and intensity

. The nal nomination was submitted in

February 2023 in the form of a comprehensive application

entitled “Gdynia Early Modernist City Centre. Nomination

Dossier” (Sołtysik, Hirsch and Stępa 2023) and sent to the

UNESCO World Heritage Committee in Paris, where, in

July 2025, following the provision of additional informa-

tion, it received a positive assessment

Initially, until July 2022, the work was carried out in collabora-

tion with the Bartlett School of Architecture in London.

The Head of the Heritage Protection Department, dr Marek Stępa,

oversaw the entire project at Gdynia City Council, and a team from the

Municipal Conservator’s Oce in Gdynia, led by dr hab. Robert Hirsch,

also took part in the work. The results of the research were veried by

the Committee for World Cultural Heritage in Poland at the Ministry of

Culture and National Heritage, receiving substantive approval from that

institution in 2023.

Since the nomination was submitted in 2023, two additional an-

nexes to the application have been prepared with the author’s involve-

ment in response to questions and comments from the UNESCO World

Heritage Committee and sent to Paris: one in October 2024 and the other

28 Maria Jolanta Sołtysik

The article presents a part of the research results con-

tained in this application, carried out by the author between

2022 and 2025. The main objective was to establish the sig-

nicance of Gdynia’s City Centre in the history of global

urban planning and architecture, and in particular to for-

mulate a statement of Outstanding Universal Value of the

complex, to present its attributes and to propose criteria for

inclusion on the World Heritage List. The territorial scope

of the work was the City Centre within the boundaries of

the Historic Monument (Fig. 1), and the time frame cov-

ered the entire history of Gdynia, with particular emphasis

on the interwar period. The text below presents the results

of the research solely with regard to urban planning issues,

as expanding it to include architectural issues would exceed

the scope of this article.

The research hypothesis was that the Centre of Gdynia is

an outstanding example of a city centre built from scratch in

the interwar period, illustrating the signicant changes that

this period brought to the history of Modernism. The research

was conducted using a historical-comparative method,

based

both on the relevant literature and on the author’s own an-

alytical studies.

in February 2025 (Hirsch et al. 2024; 2025). In July 2025 the complete

set of materials received a “referral” (i.e., a positive) assessment at the

Committee meeting held in Paris from 6 to 16 July 2025, with a rec-

ommendation to make some further corrections and a suggestion that

the nominated site be named “Gdynia Modernist City Centre” (World

Heritage Committee 2025, 379). The third addendum, in response to

these comments, which changed the name of the site and corrected the

boundaries of its buer zone, was sent to the World Heritage Committee

in Paris in February 2026. A nal decision on whether Gdynia will be

inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List is expected in July 2026.

The article presents three main aspects of the value of

Gdynia’s City Centre to the world’s urban heritage: rstly,

the city’s layout as an illustration of the leading urban plan-

ning ideas of the early 20

century; secondly, an innovative

approach to the layout of the City Centre, which combines

a traditional street-and-square structure with modernist

drive to improve housing conditions; and thirdly, Gdynia’s

maritime genius loci and its inuence on shaping the city’s

identity.

State of research

The rst analyses of Gdynia’s layout were undertaken as

early as the 1930s by the very authors of its urban plans

–

Adam Kuncewicz (1933, 3–14) and Roman Feliński (1935,

185–196). Subsequently, Stanisław Filipkowski, the design-

er of the city’s Grand District (Representational Dis

trict),

presented the nal concept for the district within the con-

text of the City Centre’s development (Filipkowski 1938).

In the post-war period, there was no academic research

into the urban planning and architecture of Gdynia

, and

the rst studies on this subject did not appear until after

1989. The author of this article was the rst to address this

issue, analysing it comprehensively with regard to the City

Centre and the port, as well as the individual districts of

Gdynia (Sołtysik 1993). She expanded on this topic in her

next book, analysing the spatial form of Gdynia’s apart-

ment houses and their evolution (Sołtysik 2003). Problems

related to the preservation of the historic city layout were

described by Hirsch (2016), whilst the development and ar-

chitecture of the port were presented by Anna Orchowska

(2023). In addition, a number of specic issues concerning

Gdynia’s urban planning have been published in a mono-

graph series entitled Modernism in Europe, Modernism in

Gdynia, published every two years since 1997 by Gdynia

City Council in collaboration with the Faculty of Architec-

ture at Gdańsk University of Technology. However, the is-

sue of the city’s spatial value as a World Heritage site has

not yet been addressed in any publications.

The general plan of Gdynia and the leading ideas

in early 20

-century European urban planning

as a formative phase of Modernism

The rst urban plan for Gdynia was drawn up at the

Ministry of Public Works in Warsaw in May 1926. It was

a joint work of two prominent architects and urban plan-

ners of interwar Poland, who have already been mentioned

– Roman Feliński (1886–1953) and Adam Kuncewicz

(1893–1945)

. The plan they produced was presented in

The single-volume monograph Dzieje Gdyni [The History of

Gdynia], edited by Roman Wapiński and published in 1980 (Wapiński

1980), does not address this topic, and the chapter “Powstanie i rozwój

miasta” [The Founding and Development of the City] by Mieczysław

Widernik contains unveried information regarding Gdynia’s plans, such

as the statement concerning the rst plan from 1926, which states that: The

development plan did not provide for building zones that would regulate

the size and purpose of the buildings to be erected (Widernik 1980, 75).

Feliński was a gure of particular distinction in both urban plan-

ning and architecture. He went down in history as the author of over

Fig. 1. The boundaries of the Gdynia Historic Monument, and

at the same time the area proposed for inclusion on the UNESCO

World Heritage List (source: Rozporządzenie Prezydenta RP… 2015, app. 2)

Il. 1. Granice gdyńskiego Pomnika Historii, a jednocześnie terenu

proponowanego do wpisu na listę UNESCO

(źródło: Rozporządzenie Prezydenta RP… 2015, załącznik 2)

Gdynia Modernist City Centre as a UNESCO World Urban Heritage 29

two parts: the “Indicative Outline of the Expansion of the

City of Gdynia”, which included a general layout of the

entire city on a scale of 1:25,000, and in the “Outline of

the Expansion of the City of Gdynia”, drawn up mainly

for the City Centre on a scale of 1:5,000

. Feliński – as he

himself emphasised – was the originator of the entire proj-

ect (Feliński 1935, 185) and, as head of Department VIII

at the Ministry of Public Works, oversaw the work on it

until mid-1926. Kuncewicz, on the other hand, was the di-

rect executor of this work. Between 1927 and 1928, he also

made adjustments to the original layout of the City Centre,

necessitated by the port’s expansion southwards, which had

not been foreseen at the outset

Despite these adjustments, the main principles guiding

the design of the entire urban complex of Gdynia remained

largely unchanged. These principles served as clear evi-

dence that the authors of the plan were not only fully aware

of the ideas that were shaping European urban planning at

the time, but also implemented them into their practice. In

the general plan of Gdynia, Feliński and Kuncewicz tackled

and ingeniously resolved one of the fundamental problems

of 20

-century urban planning – the problem of improving

housing conditions in the city. The very issue of improving

housing conditions was, in fact, the driving force behind

the whole Modernist Movement, whilst also serving as the

foundation of a new era: the era of Modernism. In terms of

urban planning, three groundbreaking ideas from the early

century were of particular signicance to that process:

the concept of the “Garden City”, the concept of the “In-

dustrial City” and the concept of zoning the city. The vivid

inuence of these three ideas can be seen in the plans for

Gdynia and its City Centre.

The concept of the “Garden City”. It was developed

by the English urban planner and social reformer Ebenezer

Howard (1850–1928) and rst published in 1898, and again

in 1902 (Howard 1902). Its main aim was to infuse the city

with greenery and relieve pressure on its centre, the so-called

a dozen outstanding architectural projects and under his leadership at the

Ministry of Public Works in Warsaw, several dozen town development

plans were drawn up between 1919 and 1926. He was also the author

of three books on urban planning, including one of the rst textbooks

in Poland in this eld, entitled Budowa miast z ilustracyami i plana-

mi miast [Urban development with illustrations and city maps] (1916)

and published numerous articles on this subject (Lewicki 2007, 13, 14).

Kuncewicz, meanwhile, worked with Feliński at the Ministry of Public

Works in 1925–1926, and later, until 1931, served as a senior assistant at

the Department of Polish Architecture within the Faculty of Architecture

at the Warsaw University of Technology (Warszawska Szkoła Architektu-

ry 1915–1965 [Warsaw School of Architecture 1915–1965] 1967, 263),

and as a researcher into the history of urban planning, he was the author

of two books: Plany przeglądowe miast polskich [Overview Plans of

Polish Cities] (1929) and Zasady sporządzania planów zabudowania

[Principles of Drawing Up Development Plans] (1937).

The originals of these urban plans have not survived to the pres-

ent day, and we know them only from publications by Feliński (1935,

186, 187, 190, 191) and Kuncewicz (1933, 5, 6).

Originally, the port plans had envisaged the construction of only

two outer piers, but as a result of the coal boom, their number was in-

creased to four, extending much further south and blocking direct access

to the sea for the city centre. Kuncewicz had to take this situation into

account in his detailed plans. He also continued his work on the master

plan for Gdynia, leading to its approval in 1931 (Sołtysik 1993).

“Central City”, through a network of satellite “Garden Cit-

ies”, separated from it by green belts. This idea inspired the

“Indicative Outline of the Expansion of the City of Gdynia”

(1926), as a general urban plan for the city (Fig. 2).

In this plan, the inuence of the “Garden City” concept is

most visible in the relationship between the City Centre and

the residential suburbs, situated as satellite settlements around

the central area and the new port. These suburbs – which Fe-

liń ski referred to as “satellite estates” (Feliń ski 1935, 188)

– were situated on the sites of former rural settlements near

Gdy nia: Oksywie, Obłuże, Chylonia and Kamien na Góra, se -

pa rating them from the centre by forested, agricultural or park-

land areas. As a result, the Centre of Gdy nia was to de velop

not in a concentric and continuous manner, like the centres

of old towns, but alongside ex tensive green spaces. This

principle remains evident in the city’s structure to this day.

The concept of the “Industrial City”, published in 1917

by French architect Tony Garnier (1869–1948) (Garnier

1917), was the rst design for a modern city in which the

very central element was formed by a large industrial com-

plex (Pawłowski 1972). Garnier outlined how this com -

plex should be situated in relation to the city centre, the re -

sidential areas and the main transport routes. These recom-

mendations had a signicant inuence on the general urban

plan of Gdynia.

Feliński and Kuncewicz situated Gdynia’s industrial areas

away from the City Centre, near the port, along road and rail

Fig. 2. “Indicative Outline of the Expansion of the City of Gdynia”,

showing the satelite layout of districts in relation to the city centre, 1926

(source: Feliński 1935, 186)

Il. 2. „Szkic orjentacyjny rozbudowy miasta Gdyni” z satelitarnym

układem dzielnic względem Śródmieścia, 1926

(źródło: Feliński 1935, 186)

30 Maria Jolanta Sołtysik

Fig. 3. The proposed location of Gdynia’s industrial district in 1926.

The red colour coding was introduced for the sake of this article

(source: Feliński 1935, 186)

Il. 3. Projektowana w 1926 r. lokalizacja dzielnicy przemysłowej

Gdyni. Czerwonym, na potrzeby artykułu, oznaczono zasięg dzielnicy

(źródło: Feliński 1935, 186)

routes, anticipating their further development northwards

towards the planned industrial canal (Fig. 3). This location

was fully in line with the principles of the Garnier’s plan of

“Une cité industrielle”, meaning that Gdy nia’s industrial dis-

trict: a) constituted a separate spatial and functional structure

within the layout, b) was set apart from the City Centre and

most residential districts, c) was conveniently connected by

transport links to the entire complex, d) had close access to

water and port basins. It should be emphasised that to this

day, this area remains the industrial heart of Gdynia.

The concept of zoning the city. The urban planner who

in the late 19

and early 20

centuries popularised and

widely implemented the concept of zoning the city was Ger-

man architect Hermann Joseph Stübben (1845–1936). His

urban planning projects for many European cities, includ-

ing Berlin, Dortmund, Düsseldorf and Cologne, introduced

a division of the city into specic building zones (construc-

tion zones), which regulated the permissible height and type

of development. From then on, this method became one of

the main tools of modern urban planning.

All the plans drawn up for Gdynia during the interwar

period were zoning plans. The “Outline of the Expansion

of the City of Gdynia”, drawn up by Feliński and Kunce-

wicz in 1926 envisaged three types of development: com-

pact four-storey, compact three-storey, and loose, grouped

two-storey (Fig. 4). Kuncewicz’s detailed development plans

from 1927–1928 and his general plan from 1928–1930 add-

ed a further zone to the City Centre, comprising ve storeys

(up to 18 m) (Sołtysik 1993, 122, 149). These pro visions

were codied and supplemented by the local police and

building regulations for Gdynia, published in 1931 (Og ło-

sze nie Wo je wo dy Pomorskiego 1931)

. However, the new

master plan of 1936 introduced a sixth building zone along

the principal downtown thoroughfares, with a height of six

storeys and 22 m (Sołtysik 2003, 52)

The main planning principle of Gdynia’s

City Centre:

urban tradition combined

with modernist ideas

The question of how best to shape the urban structure

of a modern city centre was a fundamental issue for Gdy-

nia. This challenge was unprecedented in early 20

-century

Europe, for although numerous housing estates were be-

ing built here at the time, the construction of an entire city

centre from scratch lacked both precedent and established

modernist models.

The designers of Gdynia’s City Centre decided to adopt

an innovative concept that, on the one hand, continued the

European tradition of compact, street-facing development,

and on the other hand was thoroughly modernised and en-

sured a high standard of living. It was based on three main,

structurally interlinked elements: a modern street, a modern

urban block and a modern apartment house.

A modern approach to street design. Feliński and

Kuncewicz decided, rst and foremost, that the City Centre

would be shaped around a traditional grid of streets and

squares, lled with multi-storey residential and commer-

cial buildings forming compact frontages. In this regard,

they wished to continue the traditional approach to shaping

In addition to the number of storeys and building height for each

zone, the local building regulations for Gdynia also specify the building

coverage of the plot and the possibility of locating single-storey out-

buildings at the rear of the plot.

The tradition of strict zoning in the construction sector persisted

in Gdynia’s city centre until the 1970s, when it was abandoned and per-

mission was granted to erect isolated high-rise buildings there.

Fig. 4. “Outline of the Expansion of the City of Gdynia”, 1926.

The plan’s legend includes a list of the building zones

(source: Feliński 1935, 187)

Il. 4. „Szkic rozbudowy miasta Gdyni”, 1926 r. W legendzie planu

zamieszczono wykaz stref budowlanych (źródło: Feliński 1935, 187)

Gdynia Modernist City Centre as a UNESCO World Urban Heritage 31

the city centre, one that has long been rooted in European

urban planning and ensures its clear communication and

a broad range of functions. In Gdynia’s City Centre, build-

ings were to be situated strictly within the street regulating

lines ‒ the front building lines ‒ forming rows of houses

with ground oors designated for services. Public buildings

were also situated along these lines, although particularly

prominent locations were chosen for them. The designers

of Gdynia’s City Centre did not, therefore, follow the path

proposed by extremely avant-garde architectural visionar-

ies such as Le Corbusier, or architects associated with the

Bauhaus School, who rejected the compact urban develop-

ment of the city and moved away from the street layout

At the same time, however, Gdynia’s streets were in-

tended to be modern – wide, allowing light and air to reach

the buildings (Sołtysik 2003, 52), and equipped with wa-

ter mains, sewerage and street lighting. The width of the

streets ranged from 15–18 m to 24–28 m

, and these di-

mensions also determined the maximum height of the

buildings that could be constructed along them. The central

part of each street was occupied by the roadway, separat-

ed by kerbs from the ve- or six-metre-wide pavements

running on either side. Rows of trees were planted along

the pavements to improve hygiene, aesthetics and comfort

Le Corbusier’s utopian design for the City of Tomorrow (Ville

Con

temporaine), featuring skyscrapers and apartment blocks loosely sit-

uated amidst greenery and bypassing traditional streets, dates from 1922.

A similar concept of loosely arranged blocks was also proposed in the 1920s

by architects from the Bauhaus and other avant-garde European groups.

A width of 15 m was specied for smaller streets in the city centre,

such as Mściwoja, Pułaskiego, Szkolna, Słowackiego, Żeromskiego and

Zygmunta Augusta. Streets such as Abrahama, Batorego, Bema, Ki liń-

skie go, 3 Maja and Żeromskiego were 18 m wide. Major thoroughfares

were 24 m wide (such as Świętojańska and Władysława IV streets) and

28 m wide (such as 10 Lutego and Dworcowa streets). The main thor-

oughfare – Śląska Street – was 35 m wide and was situated on the western

side of the railway tracks, outside the immediate city centre and beyond

the bounda ries of this study.

(Fig. 5)

. For the most part, the roadways in Gdynia’s City

Centre were entirely paved with cobblestones, although the

widest ones already had two types of surfaces – the mod-

ern asphalt in the middle, devoted mainly for cars, and the

cobblestones at the sides, devoted mainly for horse-drawn

carriages. Two thoroughfares held a special place in Gdy-

nia’s street grid: the 87-metre-wide Kościuszko Square and

the 45-metre-wide Piłsudski Avenue

– which served as

scenic routes oering views of the sea.

A modern concept of the urban block. The street lay-

out is inextricably linked to the urban block. In 19

-centu-

ry European cities, urban blocks were deep, ranging from

170 to as much as 250 metres. They were divided into deep

building plots, which were later almost entirely built up

with a front house and tall side and rear residential wings

(residential outbuildings), clustered around small, poorly

ventilated courtyards, known as “well-courtyards”. This

type of development had a bad reputation and was the main

reason behind the attempts by modernists to improve hous-

ing. Such an attempt was undertaken and successfully im-

plemented in Gdynia.

The rst indications of what the urban blocks in Gdynia’s

City Centre were to look like were presented by its designers

in 1926, in one of the axonometric views (Fig. 6) appended to

the “Outline of the Expansion of the City of Gdynia”. It is clear

from the plan that the urban blocks of the City Centre were

to consist of compact perimeter development with front-fac-

ing houses on all four sides, whilst the interior of each

block

was designed as an open space, completely free of build-

ings, forming a spacious courtyard lled with greenery. This

was intended to radically improve housing conditions.

This was the norm in Gdynia’s city centre, and there was only

one exception ‒ on Bema Street, where front gardens were created in

front of houses without ground-oor retail premises.

Piłsudski Avenue lies outside the boundaries of the Historic

Monument, and therefore also outside the area proposed for inclusion

on the UNESCO List, although it is within its immediate buer zone.

Fig. 5. One of the main streets

of Gdynia, 10 Lutego Street

in 1936

(source: M.J. Sołtysik’s archive)

Il. 5. Jedna z głównych ulic

Gdyni, ul. 10 Lutego w 1936 r.

(źródło: archiwum M.J. Sołtysik)

32 Maria Jolanta Sołtysik

An important element of the concept of the Gdynia’s

urban block was, in fact, the rear building line (back de-

velopment line), which buildings were not permitted to

cross. Feliński wrote about this as early as 1916: Even when

maintaining multi-storey tenement blocks, it is possible to

achieve a signicant improvement in housing conditions by

establishing a rear building line for them and by prohibiting

the construction of courtyard buildings. In this way, instead

of the existing individual small courtyards of the houses,

all the courtyards would merge into one large whole, into

one large garden protected from street dust (1916, 59, 60).

Kuncewicz, who continued work on the plans for the

Centre of Gdynia after 1926, retained this concept (Kunce-

wicz 1933). Due to the reduction in the area of the City

Centre caused by the expansion of the port, the urban

blocks he designed were to be even shallower than in the

original plan. They were generally between 60 and 90 m

deep, which, with a length of 250 to 300 m, resulted in the

shape of elongated rectangles. Their key feature was a de-

ned rear building line, running 20 m from the front line

(Fig. 7). The entire remaining interior was designated as

a courtyard

, with the intention of combining this open

space into a single green courtyard. Unfortunately, in prac-

tice this did not always succeed

; nevertheless, the Gdynia

quarter represented a modern solution, incorporating the

modernist principles of access to light and greenery.

Although, in practice, these inner courtyards often featured uti-

lity and service buildings (such as garages), these were single-storey struc-

tures, sometimes of a temporary nature.

Unfortunately, in this case too, the reality often diered, a fact

criticised by Feliński, who wrote: The interiors of the blocks are begin-

ning to be divided into small, individual courtyards – just like in old

towns (Feliński 1935, 192).

A modern concept for the apartment house. The area

of Gdynia’s City Centre had been almost entirely private

land since the pre-urban period, remaining in the owner-

ship of former rural landowners. Hence, quite naturally, the

designers of the City Centre chose the private townhouse

– the tenement house – as the basic form for the new de-

velopment. However, the Gdynia tenement houses were to

dier signicantly from the 19

-century tenement houses

that formed a dense network of tall residential outbuildings.

The urban blocks designed by Feliński and Kuncewicz led

to the elimination of this type of development. The solu-

tion they adopted became the basis for the development

in Gdynia of a new type of downtown houses – apartment

houses without residential outbuildings.

These were thoroughly modern and hygienic houses, of-

fering very good living conditions. They consisted solely of

a front building of several storeys, with no multi-storey side

or rear residential wings and without the small “well-court-

yards”. The height of this building could not exceed the

width of the street, and its rear faced the big inner court-

yard of the urban block. The “shallow”, open-plan layout

of the buildings ensured ample access to light and air from

both sides – the front and the rear (Fig. 8). All of them had

bright, property ventilated ats, with full amenities and ac-

cess to the city’s infrastructure. At the same time, in the tra-

ditional manner, private owners set aside the ground oors

of their houses for commercial use, which ensured the wide

range of functions essential in the City Centre.

Gdynia’s maritime genius loci and the ethos

of a Modernist city:

the concept of a City Centre facing the sea

Although the concept of genius loci in relation to archi-

tecture was only coined and popularised by Christian Nor-

berg-Schulz (1979) in the second half of the 20

century,

Fig. 6. Concept for the urban blocks in the 1926 city centre’s plan

of Gdynia, characterised by frontage build-up with spacious

internal courtyards (source: Feliński 1935, 190)

Il. 6. Koncepcja kwartałów urbanistycznych w planie centrum Gdyni

z 1926 r., tworzonych przez zabudowę obrzeżną z obszernymi

wewnętrznymi dziedzińcami (źródło: Feliński 1935, 190)

Fig. 7. An example of an urban block from the detailed plan

for Gdynia city centre, 1927–1928

(source: Akta Świętojańska 50, photo by M.J. Sołtysik)

Il. 7. Przykład kwartału urbanistycznego w planie szczegółowym

Śródmieścia Gdyni z lat 1927–1928

(źródło: Akta Świętojańska 50, fot. M.J. Sołtysik)

Gdynia Modernist City Centre as a UNESCO World Urban Heritage 33

Fig. 8. An example of the layout of a Gdynia apartment house from the 1930s:

a) upper floors for residential use, b) ground floor for shops

(source: Akta Świętojańska 3, photo by M.J. Sołtysik)

Il. 8. Przykładowy plan gdyńskiej kamienicy bezoficynowej z lat trzydziestych XX w.:

a) piętra przeznaczone na mieszkania, b) parter ze sklepami

(źródło: Akta Świętojańska 3, fot. M.J. Sołtysik)

34 Maria Jolanta Sołtysik

the spirit of the place had been created in Gdynia from the

very beginning. Throughout the interwar period, eorts

were made to give the layout of Gdynia City Centre a sym-

bolic ma ritime identity that would set it apart from other

cities – a strong spatial connection to the sea.

Even in the earliest plans for Gdynia’s City Centre, the

main compositional principle guiding the design of its grand,

representative section was its spatial openness towards the

sea. In the “Outline for the Expansion…” drawn up in 1926

by Feliński and Kuncewicz, the key feature was a broad

ave nue running along the line of what is now Jana Radtkego

Street, culminating in a grand seaside square and a prome-

nade running along the beach (cf. Figs. 4 and 6). Unfortu-

nately, changes to the port construction plans introduced in

1927–1928 forced the abandonment of this concept.

At the same time, a new and highly inspiring oppor-

tunity to spatially link the City Centre with the sea was

identied. The idea was to connect a key downtown axis

– 10 Lu tego Street and Kościuszko Square – with the south-

ernmost port pier, the South Pier, which was designated as

a passenger pier. In 1933, Jerzy Müller, head of the Deve-

lop ment Department of the Government Commissariat in

Gdynia, wrote that incorporating the passenger pier into

the city […] would enable the creation of a monumental

axis running along 10 Lutego Street – Kościuszko Square –

to the Freedom Monument at the end of the pier, over 1,700

metres in length (Müller

1933, 27). As a result, the South

Pier, built in 1934–1935 and extending 630 m out to sea,

was situated precisely as a prolongation of the main axis of

the City Centre, 10 Lutego Street and Kościuszko Square.

The construction of the South Pier, together with the

accompanying Sailing Basin, provided the impetus for the

launch (in 1936) of a nationwide architectural competition

for the “planning of the South Pier and adjacent areas”

The nal outcome of the design work was the denitive

concept for Gdynia’s Grand District (Representative Dis-

trict), drawn up in 1938 under the direction of Stanisław

Filipkowski (Fig. 9a, b). Its main feature was a grand urban

The results of the “Competition for the layout of the South Pier

and adjacent areas, and for a preliminary design of the Maritime Sailing

Centre in the port and city of Gdynia”, as well as the subsequent design

of the Representative District, were discussed in detail by the author of

this article (Sołtysik 1993, 297–305).

Fig. 9. Final concept of the Grand District of Gdynia, 1938: a) plan, b) perspective view (source: M.J. Sołtysik’s archive)

Il. 9. Ostateczna koncepcja dzielnicy reprezentacyjnej Gdyni, 1938: a) plan, b) widok perspektywiczny (źródło: archiwum M.J. Sołtysik)

a b

axis running along 10 Lutego Street, Kościuszko Square and

Avenue of the Unication of the Polish Lands (now John

Paul II Avenue), culminating in the complex comprising

the Sailor’s House, the Maritime Station and the Monu ment

of the Unication of the Polish Lands. This axis was linked

to the spacious Maritime Forum Square at its base, where

prestigious buildings were to be erected, including the

Town Hall and the Maritime Basilica (Filipkowski 1938).

The design of Gdynia’s Grand Dirstrict represented

a high ly modern and original solution. In it, Filipkowski

departed from the rule of compact, dense development that

had hitherto prevailed in the City Centre, proposing instead

a loose layout with wide vistas of the sea and free-standing

public buildings. The entire development was also intended

to feature a wide range of building heights, with the ar-

chitecturally striking accents of the Town Hall tower and

the towers of the Maritime Basilica. The architect thus in-

troduced, for the rst time in Gdynia, the avant-garde and

modernist principle of designing open, volumetrically var-

ied, asymmetrical and landscape-sensitive developments.

In this sense, this concept represents a breakthrough in

Gdynia’s urban planning, placing Gdynia’s Grand District

within the avant-garde trend of interwar urban planning.

Although the construction of this complex, interrupted

by the outbreak of the World War II, remained unnished,

a monumental design for a wide, elegant avenue running

down the centre of the South Pier had nevertheless been

completed by 1939. It was adorned with low, geometrical-

ly shaped greenery, a nice round fountain and, at the end

of the complex, two architecturally striking buildings: the

Sailor’s House (now the Faculty of Navigation at the Mari-

time University) and the Maritime Station (now part of the

Oceanographic Museum). To this day, the avenue along the

South Pier remains the city’s principal and symbolic com-

positional feature (Fig. 10), brilliantly combining the mod-

ernist ethos with Gdynia’s maritime genius loci.

Summary of the research and conclusions:

the Outstanding Universal Value

of the urban layout of Gdynia City Centre

Built from scratch between 1926 and 1939, the Modern-

ist Centre of Gdynia stands as an outstanding and conceptu-

ally unique example of the formative phase of Modernism.

Gdynia Modernist City Centre as a UNESCO World Urban Heritage 35

It illustrates the most signicant urban planning ideas of

the early 20

century, and its structure combines traditional

concepts of urban design with Modernist principles aimed

at improving housing conditions. These features distin-

guish Gdynia both from old, 19

-century cities and from

the avant-garde concepts emerging in the interwar period

within the circles of Le Corbusier and the Bauhaus. The

Centre of Gdynia is, moreover, intrinsically and symbol-

ically linked to the sea, brilliantly combining the coastal

genius loci with the ethos of Modernism.

Based on the author’s research, it can therefore be con-

cluded that the urban complex of the Modernist Centre of

Gdynia possesses Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) in

accordance with UNESCO Criterion IV, as an illustration

of a signicant stage in human history

. On the basis of

this criterion, the site “Gdynia Modernist City Centre” is

nowadays the subject of its nomination for inclusion on the

UNESCO World Heritage List.

The ICOMOS report prepared for the July 2025 session of the

UNESCO World Heritage Committee, which assessed the nomination

submitted by Gdynia, conrms on page 240 that Gdynia meets Criteri-

on IV for inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List (ICOMOS

2025 Evaluations… 2026).

Fig. 10. The South Pier ‒ the main architectural feature of the city

(source: Heritage Protection Department of Gdynia City Council, photo by B. Ponikiewski, 2022)

Il. 10. Molo Południowe ‒ główny element kompozycyjny miasta

(źródło: Wydział Ochrony Dziedzictwa Urzędu Miasta Gdyni, fot. B. Ponikiewski, 2022)

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Streszczenie

Modernistyczne centrum Gdyni jako światowe dziedzictwo urbanistyczne UNESCO

Tematem pracy jest modernistyczne centrum Gdyni jako światowe dziedzictwo urbanistyczne UNESCO. Został on podjęty w związku z przygoto-

wywaniem wniosku o wpis Śródmieścia Gdyni na Listę Światowego Dziedzictwa UNESCO. Celem badań przeprowadzonych przez autorkę w latach

2022‒2025 było stwierdzenie znaczenia tego zespołu w dziejach światowej urbanistyki i architektury, a w szczególności sformułowanie i udokumen-

towanie orzeczenia o jego wybitnej wartości uniwersalnej (Outstanding Universal Value), wskazanie głównych atrybutów i zaproponowanie kryteriów

wpisu na listę. Badania przeprowadzone zostały metodą historyczno-porównawczą, opartą zarówno na literaturze przedmiotu, jak i na własnych studiach

analitycznych.

W wyniku przeprowadzonych prac stwierdzono, że modernistyczne centrum Gdyni jest wybitnym przykładem śródmieścia zbudowanego od pod-

staw w latach międzywojennych, przedstawiającym fundamentalne zmiany, jakie okres ten wniósł do epoki modernizmu. Stanowi to podstawę do ubie-

gania się o wpis na Światową Listę Dziedzictwa UNESCO w oparciu o kryterium IV, jako ilustracja znaczącego etapu w dziejach ludzkości.

Słowa kluczowe: UNESCO, Gdynia, śródmieście, modernizm, dziedzictwo urbanistyczne

Gdynia Modernist City Centre as a UNESCO World Urban Heritage

Maria Jolanta Sołtysik

doi:10.37190/arc260203

Abstract