text: Emilia Wróblewska
translation: Magdalena Jagodzka

In 1922, the decision to build an independent Polish port became the beginning of a miracle made by human hands – a city born from the sea and for the sea.

Four years later, the fishing settlement selected as the site of the future port had already been granted municipal rights. Progress continued. In just over a century, Gdynia has grown from a village of around one thousand inhabitants into one of Poland’s dozen largest cities. This development was made possible by the seaport and by one of the most modern shipyards in Europe at the time, built on Poland’s Baltic coast.

Separated from one another by the caesura of the Second World War, two distinct worlds meet in the urban architecture. The difference manifests itself particularly vividly in metalwork details. Some of the fences on Starowiejska Street are still immersed in the romantic breath that followed the regaining of independence. Pre-war elements are usually characterized by rich ornamentation and their substantial materiality. They are indeed made from thicker rods and bars, hand-formed by blacksmiths. They often feature traditional joining techniques, such as riveting, which largely disappeared from the urban landscape once welding became widespread.

Already in compositions from the 1930s, one can see how elegant Art Déco boldly entered the urban space – still decorative, though more geometric. By that time, however, Gdynia’s visual mythology had already begun to take shape. Whether in the monumental gateway grille of the “Pod Pomuchlem” tenement house or in the understated trident adorning the entrance gate of the former Building Office of the Port Construction Authority—the residence of engineer Tadeusz Wenda—one finds a powerful expression of the identity and origins of this maritime city. The sea is an obvious motif here, yet also a profound and daring one, considering Gdynia’s turbulent geopolitical history and the wartime upheavals it experienced. Maritime symbols woven into the city’s identity have become its distinctive insignia. Poland’s “Wedding to the Sea,” which took place in Puck on 10 February 1920, marked a pivotal historical moment and embodied the aspiration to build a modern nation. For Gdynia, this date can be seen as a symbolic date of birth, translated into a brilliant architectural metaphor. 10 Lutego Street, the city’s principal urban axis, links the historic city centre with the Baltic shoreline.

After the Second World War, architectural detailing became increasingly austere and minimalist. The aesthetics of fences gradually came to be governed by functionality and economy, shaped in part by the harsh economic realities of a country ravaged by conflict. Yet their beauty remains undeniable. While radically different in appearance, they convey the same story. Maritime references became much subtler, but they were never abandoned, as the motif had become so deeply intertwined with the city’s identity. This can be seen, for example, in the balcony railings of several tenement houses in the city centre. Looking at these designs, it is difficult to escape the impression that their creator intended them to resemble waves gently rippling across the surface of the sea. 

The details of the urban landscape, however, were not shaped exclusively by professional designers. They were also created by the city’s inhabitants themselves, including craftspeople undertaking private commissions.

The Gdynia Shipyard, and after the Second World War the Paris Commune Shipyard, depended on a complex network of departments responsible for every stage of shipbuilding—from economic planning and design, through hull construction from prefabricated elements, to the launching of the finished vessels. The shipyard’s mechanical workshops processed vast quantities of steel with remarkable efficiency.

Individual structural components had to be manufactured with great precision to ensure the highest level of safety at sea for future crews and passengers. As a result, large amounts of scrap metal were generated. It was also common in the Polish People’s Republic for workers to enjoy an informal privilege: the opportunity to use materials from their workplace for personal projects. They often had access to the necessary tools and equipment on site as well. A lasting legacy of this phenomenon is the metal “hedges” that brought colour, character, and a sense of history to the relatively young city of Gdynia. The need for privacy, even when expressed only through a symbolic separation from the public sphere, was met through the use of the exceptionally durable steel employed in shipbuilding. As one’s gaze wanders across Gdynia’s housing estates, traces of individuality emerge, transcending the constraints of austere modernism. On various floors, balcony spaces are distinguished by the presence of metal grilles welded from prefabricated steel elements. These synthetic structures are not endemic to Gdynia. Rather, they are common to the cities of industrialised communist Poland, yet each steel balustrade, window grille, and fence creates its own microclimate. Symmetrical compositions of grilles, often formed from dynamically intersecting lines, also took possession of shop windows along the city’s main streets. Steel, shaped into openwork patterns, protects property and preserves intimacy in a way that is both delicate and effective, dozing behind the display glass like a curtain. Interestingly, there are arrangements that break away from the order of straight lines, taking on fluid, less ordered forms. In the composition of one of the fences in the Kamienna Góra area, the chaotic diversity of the shapes of individual rods was masterfully tamed within the span of the fence. The result resembles the soft, crystalline structures of sea foam.

Metal became a widely available material among workers at the Gdynia Shipyard. At one point, the shipyard employed over 20,000 workers, all of whom needed to be housed somewhere in Gdynia. During the Polish People’s Republic, workers could generally rely on receiving state-allocated housing, whereas as early as the 1930s many people were forced to find accommodation outside the bounds of municipal regulations. The result of this housing shortage in the 1930s was the Meksyk estate in the Chylonia district. It was the place where poorer workers built their houses, later raising children and grandchildren in them. Over time, the properties themselves were surrounded by fanciful fences, created by the hands of the shipyard workers. What is striking, however, is that these unofficial creations also fit harmoniously into the city’s distinctive landscape.

Today, this symbolism is still present in the work of public space designers. For example, the Traffic Design studio, responsible for metal elements of small-scale architecture, ensures that the form of new objects is adapted to the character of individual parts of Gdynia. This spirit, in turn, reveals itself in the close relationship between the wave of the sea and the wave of progress that swelled in post-war Poland. The group’s works, such as the gate grille at 2 Abrahama Street or the sign and gate of the tailoring workshop on Starowiejska Street, are full of respect for the native aesthetics of the city.

This only confirms that the miracle of Gdynia is still ongoing.