20 Maciej Motak
phasized by double tree rows on both sides, on its section
dividing Dąbie and Grzegórzki. The gentle curves of the
tracks were to become the canvass of a picturesque stretch
of tall greenery, while at the same time partially isolating
– visually, acoustically and in terms of smell – the onerous
(noisy and smoky) railway line.
The new, solid building of the city’s People’s School,
which had been erected in Dąbie according to Jan Za-
wiejski’s design in 1913–1915, was connected with the
planned, original, because consciously irregular, strip of
sports and recreational areas. The dierent parts of the
strip were dedicated to children, schoolchildren, and older
youth. The school was to be located near the northern end
of this highly elongated strand, and it was to end in the
south with an area for the kindergarten. On the other hand,
the school building itself was not exposed compositional-
ly in the plan, being part of one of the planned quarters.
The designer took into account the course of all the ex-
isting streets in the district, mainly the former rural and
suburban roads of Dąbie: Fabryczna St., Jachowi cza St.,
Miedziana St., and the most important of them Grze gó -
rzec ka St. The course of the streets of the planned and
newly delineated quarters of the development was ad-
justed to them. The layout was original, distant both from
a simple checkerboard or other orthogonal parceling, as
well as from any radial-type solution. Streets with straight
and variously curved courses were proposed in a balanced
way. Both the shapes and sizes of individual quarters were
to be varied. In some quarters, a method of parceling was
indicated, mainly taking into account subdivisions and
occasional existing buildings. In one of the northern quar-
ters, a highly regular worker colony of the city’s gasworks
was to be created, with 13 multi-family buildings sur-
rounding a common, large courtyard. Among the newly
designed streets, an important role was to be assigned to
an arterial street leading straight through the entire project
area – from Grzegórzki on the western side up to the vi-
cinity of the fortress on the Białucha River (possibly with
the intention of extending the street further to the east).
This street was to be planted on one side with a line of
trees, as were several other streets. In this respect, Grze-
górzecka Street and the axis of the recreation area were
to be particularly distinguished – by their lining with tree
rows on both sides.
To some extent, the plan also honored the course of the
two watercourses – the Wisła [Vistula] and the Białucha.
The Vistula – by suggesting a trapezoidal square opening
to its gentle curve. The Białucha – by indicating several
short frontages of development (with an attractive view of
the boulevards along this river, which were the subject of
studies and projects at the time
10
), as well as by bringing
to it the aforementioned, meridional strip of sports and
recreational areas for children and young people. The area
10
The proposal to regulate the meandering Białucha River and to
develop its banks into boulevards was developed by Lenk in the reg-
ulatory plan of the so-called Territories in 1926 [8, pp. 81, 82]. Cross
sections for selected sections of the Białucha, Młynówka and Rudawa
rivers were presented by A. Kłeczek in 1930 [4, pp. 23–26]. The actual
regulation of some sections of the Białucha occurred in 1949–1951.
and extensive experience in the eld of construction and
spatial development in Krakow. In particular, these were
Vice-Presidents Sare and Rolle and Chief Przeorski
9
.
The next stage of the procedure was the Art Council’s
opinion on the plan, which was to cover all Krakow plans
and projects of greater scale and importance. A notation
placed directly on the drawing of the plan shows that the
Art Council at its February 26 meeting “acknowledged
this general plan”, as conrmed by its member, architect
Medard Stadnicki. Although the Council’s powers were
not very broad [2, pp. 54, 55], nevertheless its possible ob-
jections would probably have resulted in a reconsideration
of the plan’s assumptions.
The plan concerned one of the less developed areas of
Krakow. The former village and municipality of Dąbie
became, along with the hamlets of Beszcz and Głębinów,
part of Krakow in 1911, as cadastral district XX. Most of
the area was occupied by farmland and wasteland, with
few buildings. However, the more intensive development
of Dąbie had already begun. In 1869 it had 424 residents
and 49 houses [18, p. 918], and in 1902 it had 1,499 resi-
dents (including 427 military) and 105 houses (exclusively
wooden), as well as 3 brickyards and a glue factory, and
a small school [14, p. 234]. The population increased to
1,642 in 1910 and to as high as 2,643 in 1927 [4, p. 11].
Due to Dąbie’s strategic location, the military function was
important, represented by two barracks complexes (includ-
ing artillery barracks) and the FS16 entrenchment at the
mouth of the Białucha River to the Vistula [19, pp. 271,
273]. The transportation function was gaining importance
– since 1899 the Kocmyrzowska Railway ran along the
northwestern outskirts of Dąbie, the elements of which also
included a small station and sidings leading to factories.
The boundaries of the area covered by the study were:
the section of the Kocmyrzowska Railway from the west
and northwest; the Prądnik River (called the Białucha
in Krakow, including on the plan in question) from the
northeast; the post-fortress area around the former FS16
entrenchment from the east; the bank of the Vistula River
from the southeast; and nally, the conventionally indi-
cated boundary near the automobile barracks from the
southwest. It is worth noting that the area covered by the
study did not include the entire XX Dąbie district, but
mainly its western part (but also truncated by the north-
ern and southern edges), as well as small parts of district
XIX Grzegórzki-Piaski adjacent to Dąbie to the west. This
meant concentrating planned activities in an area closer
to the city center, more heavily developed and with better
development prospects.
The plan took into account all the existing land use
elements, clearly trying to link at least some of them to
the planned elements (Fig. 2). The most signicant was
the railway, the course of which was intended to be em-
9
Józef Sare (1850–1929) was an engineer and building councilor,
the author of many architectural projects. Karol Rolle (1871–1954) was
the main author and editor of the aforementioned monumental work on
the expansion of the area of Krakow [13]. Tadeusz Przeorski was the
author of one part of this work, as well as several other publications on
city development and local government.
