21st Century (2000–present)

Wrocław Nowe Żerniki (WUWA2)

2011– · Poland · Western & Central Europe · Postwar reconstruction, welfare-state urbanism, and mass housing · Planned by City of Wrocław
Masterplan visualisation of the model housing estate Nowe Żerniki (WUWA 2), Wrocław: perimeter blocks, low-rise terraces, green courtyards and the shared central spine, with the City Stadium beyond.
Masterplan visualisation of the model housing estate Nowe Żerniki (WUWA 2), Wrocław: perimeter blocks, low-rise terraces, green courtyards and the shared central spine, with the City Stadium beyond. · © Gmina Wrocław — used with credit · Urząd Miejski Wrocławia / Nowe Żerniki design team ('superstudio' of ~40 architects)

Core idea

Exhibition neighborhood as contemporary WUWA

Why it matters

Pilot of integrated housing and public realm

Description

Nowe Żerniki is a model housing district on the western edge of Wrocław, initiated in 2011 by the City of Wrocław with the local architectural community and developed in association with the city's European Capital of Culture year. Conceived explicitly as a contemporary successor to the 1929 WUWA Werkbund exhibition estate (hence 'WUWA2'), it is a masterplanned neighbourhood in which many architects each design individual blocks around a shared framework of streets, public buildings and open space.

Significance

The district revives the German-Central European tradition of the exhibition neighbourhood as an instrument of housing reform, testing integrated design of dwellings, schools and public realm against the backdrop of Poland's developer-led housing market. It is discussed as a rare post-1989 attempt by a Polish city to steer ordinary housing quality through curated collective design rather than regulation alone.

What shaped it

Sources

Open it on the interactive timeline →
hub.toekom.st — History of Urbanism · an interactive timeline of 850 planned cities across 6,000 years.