Crooked House

Krzywy Domek was built in 2004 on Monte Cassino, the pedestrian street running down to the Sopot pier, and it is one of the most photographed buildings in Poland for a simple reason: its walls, windows and roofline bend and bulge as though the whole thing were melting or being viewed through warped glass. The architects Szotynscy and Zaleski based it on the drawings of Jan Marcin Szancer, the illustrator whose work every Polish child of the twentieth century knew from books of fairy tales, and on the Sopot scenes of the Swedish artist Per Dahlberg. It is part of the Rezydent shopping centre, about 4,000 square metres in all; the ground floor is shops and restaurants and the upper floors offices, so there is nothing to visit inside - it is a facade to look at, which is what everyone does. It has appeared on lists of the strangest buildings in the world, and the street it stands on is Sopot's busiest.

What's there

• Warped walls and windows - bending as if seen through moving glass.
• Szancer's illustrations built - the fairy-tale drawings that shaped it.
• A working commercial building - shops below, offices above.
• Sopot's busiest street - Monte Cassino running down to the pier.

When to go

All year. An hour.

Practical notes

There is nothing to see inside - it is an exterior. The street is extremely crowded in summer and getting a clear photograph takes patience. Restaurants inside are ordinary and priced for the location.

Nearby

Sopot pier is at the bottom of the street; the Forest Opera is uphill.

Key facts