The Wrocław that never came to be: post-war visions versus economic restrictions
Between 1945 and 1989 some tens or even some hundreds new projects of the new metropolitan Wrocław were drawn up – for the center, for individual districts, as well as comprehensive plans of the city. Post-war projects discussed by the author were not carried out mainly because of economic restrictions – there was first of all need to built houses, not ‘a city of the future’. Today those, not carried out and perhaps a bit utopian, visions provide knowledge about the architects and urbanists who wanted to create the new Wrocław – a place full of sun light and glass, where inhabitants could walk in the green belts and streets full of high speed cars. The purpose of those projects was also to integrate particular parts of the city, creating the urban area in places where it disappeared as the result of the War. This comprehensive thinking about the urban space is the most important value of the forgotten projects, because not only skyscrapers are the evidence of the metropolitan character of the city, but just the ability to join architecture and town planning and to compose buildings, streets and squares in a harmonious way.