A new dead district? Katowice Culture Zone in the perspective of Jane Jacobs’ urban concept

Abstract

The article’s main subject is the Culture Zone in Katowice – a new district established in an area of the now-closed coal mine called “Katowice”. Katowice Culture Zone consists of: a well known “Spodek” arena, recently opened The Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra complex, International Congress Centre and new buildings of The Silesian Museum. The new buildings gained recognition and appreciation in the architects’ community. However, there are also negative opinions about the way the whole project was executed. Some critics complain about the fact of concentrating buildings of similar function in a close-by area. It has been pointed in the article that the new district was designed according to the modernist paradigm in urbanism (functional separation, loose density of buildings). There is nothing unusual about it considering past modernist influences in the city architecture. Nevertheless, the social consequences of modernistic urban planning are way more important, as it has been pointed out by the critics. A special place among them belongs to Jane Jacobs, an author of a famous book: “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”. In the article, the public space of Culture Zone in Katowice was analyzed according to Jacobs’ thesis. Several issues have been discussed: layout of buildings and streets or a functional variety. Unfortunately, conclusions of the research are not optimistic. The Culture Zone is separated from rest of the city and lacks diversity. It also suffers lack of citizens’ interest.