Wandy and Willowe Residential Estates

The first designers of the City of Nowa Huta fell back upon the concept of "a neighbourhood unit", that is a self-sufficient settlement for 4000-5000 inhabitants, that was to assure them of all their needs. Everything they needed: shops, schools, kindergartens, playgrounds, post office, health clinic, and cinema - was to be situated near at hand.

With this thought in mind, the first buildings were erected even before the spatial plan for the new city was developed. This is why the oldest area of Nowa Huta diverges slightly from the later residential estates. The houses here are relatively small, are only three stories high, and the development plan is quite free-form and devoid of rigorous symmetry.

This is how the first residential estates - Wandy and Willowe - were built in Nowa Huta. It is in the Osiedle Wandy that we can find the oldest residential building in Nowa Huta. It stands at ul. Mierzwy 14, and its construction was startted on 23rd April 1949, which is commemorated with a plaque bearing the following inscription:

The great opus of building Nowa Huta was begun in this place: a symbol of the socialist transformation of the People's Republic of Poland, 1949-1969.

Moreover, Willowe boasts Nowa Huta's first named square, known as Plac Pocztowy (i.e. Postal Service Square). Later, it bore the name of a Hero of Socialist Labour, Piotr Ożański. Another change of name is again planned, this time to "Plac Przy Poczcie". It is worth knowing that it was the story of Piotr Ożański that inspired Andrzej Wajda to make two of his most famous films: Man of Marble and Man of Iron.