Katowice Culture Zone

The Strefa Kultury occupies the ground of the Katowice coal mine, which closed in 1999, and it is the clearest statement of what the city decided to do about the end of mining. Three buildings sit on it. The Silesian Museum was built almost entirely below ground so that the surface stays open, with glass lightwells rising out of the grass and the mine's surviving shaft tower, Warszawa II, kept as a viewing platform over the site. The NOSPR concert hall, opened in 2014 by Tomasz Konior with acoustics by Yasuhisa Toyota, is a brick block around a wooden main hall widely rated among the best-sounding in Europe. The Spodek, the saucer, is older and different in spirit: a 1971 arena whose tilted circular roof hangs on a tension structure, an engineering piece of its period and the city's symbol long before the rest arrived.

What you actually see

• A museum underground - glass lightwells in the grass over the buried galleries.
• A kept shaft tower - Warszawa II, retained as a viewing platform.
• The NOSPR hall - brick outside, wood inside, acoustics by Yasuhisa Toyota.
• The Spodek - the 1971 saucer arena on its tension roof.

When to go

All year. A day.

Honest expectations

The Spodek is an event venue and is not open to look around outside events. Concert tickets sell out well ahead. The museum is closed on Mondays. The zone is open ground and exposed in bad weather.

Nearby

Nikiszowiec is east; the market square and Mariacka street are south.