In preparing the exhibition Appetite for Radical Change. Katowice 1865-2015 on the history of the city, we have created a detailed online map of Katowice buildings. Thanks to the data received from the Surveying Department of the City of Katowice we were able to present the addresses and commissioning dates of selected objects. We are currently working on expanding the range of information available within the app, such as names of architects and descriptions of buildings.
Paradoxically enough, in terms of its development history and architecture, Katowice is a bit of a rarity among the largest Polish cities. As the youngest of them, it boasts the most interesting (though not fully appreciated) architecture, ranging from working class estates and iconic industrial sites, which have witnessed long decades of social and civilizational progress, through Poland’s best examples of interwar and post-war modernism, led by the futuristic Spodek Arena, to contemporary public buildings, such as the academic library and the new home of the Silesian Museum.
In order to help the residents understand the spatial development intricacies of the city, we prepared two maps based on urban development data for display at the exhibition: one showing central Katowice’s transformations throughout history, and the other providing particular buildings’ creation dates and names of the architects who designed them. Though the inspiration for these came from similar projects in Portland and Brooklyn, where colour maps were used to present creation dates of various parts of the city, we decided to introduce a number of improvements. First of all, we identified historical periods that were important for the city, allowing visitors to view and compare selected layers so that it is easy to find, e.g. only those buildings erected before the war, or projects conceived after 1989.
During our mapathons, organised regularly in conjunction with experts from the Silesian Cultural Heritage Centre, we systematically supplement the maps with both creation dates as well as the names of the architects of the most important buildings in the city centre, adding links to information about them in Wikipedia. Residents can also submit their own comments and suggestions using a special form.
