New Housing Complexes in Post-Industrial Areas in City Centres in Poland Versus Cultural and Natural Heritage Protection—With a Particular Focus on Cracow

Mateusz Gyurkovich and Jacek Gyurkovich
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Mateusz Gyurkovich: Chair of Urbanism and City Structure Architecture, Faculty of Architecture, Cracow University of Technology, 31-155 Cracow, Poland
Jacek Gyurkovich: Chair of Urbanism and City Structure Architecture, Faculty of Architecture, Cracow University of Technology, 31-155 Cracow, Poland

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-36

Abstract: The cityscape changes constantly, reflecting the socio-economic conditions of a given urbanised area—both globally and in any given country. Post-industrial buildings and complexes have been its important elements since the nineteenth century. At present, many of them are undergoing adaptive reuse. The oldest, which are parts of post-industrial heritage and define the local identity, are now located in city centres. Some are revitalised and often adapted into multi-family housing. This paper fills a gap in the research on revitalised areas in Polish city centres, especially the ones converted into housing. It notes the links between these projects with elements of urban green-blue infrastructure, as well as the methods of protection of the reused postindustrial heritage. Studies from 2000–2020 on Polish multi-family housing architecture prove that the quality of buildings and semi-public green spaces is becoming increasingly important to developers and buyers. Properly used and exposed post-industrial heritage can contribute to raising the attractiveness of such spaces. In combination with city greenery systems, they can form attractive townscape sequences, as proven by Cracow cases. The paper’s conclusions indicate that the preservation and exposition of post-industrial heritage in newly built housing complexes is affected by numerous factors. The most important of these are legal determinants based on both state-level and local law. Economic factors also play a major role, as they directly affect projects. The skills and talent of designers who can create unique proposals that expose surviving relicts and a given place’s genius loci even in the most restrictive of economic and legal conditions, are also not without significance.

Keywords: urban renewal; post-industrial heritage; multi-family housing; revitalisation of city centres; protection and preservation of built heritage; blue-green infrastructure of a city; Polish major cities; Cracow (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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