Nikiszowiec

Nikiszowiec was built from 1908 for the workers of the Giesche mining company by the cousins Emil and Georg Zillmann, and it was designed as a complete settlement rather than rows of houses: nine three-storey blocks of red brick, each enclosing a courtyard, connected by archways, with the church, the school, the shops, the laundry, the bathhouse and the company offices built into the plan. The brickwork is patterned, the window surrounds vary from block to block, and the whole thing is coherent in a way that industrial housing of the period usually is not. It has stayed residential throughout and is still lived in, mostly by families with mining connections, which is why it does not feel like a museum. The urban ethnology department of the Museum of Katowice History is here, in the old laundry, and the painter Erwin Sowka and the Janowska naive painting group worked in this district. It has been a Historic Monument of Poland since 2011.

History

The Giesche mining concern built the settlement for its coal mine in 1908-1918, on land of the Gieschewald manor. When the manor was dissolved on 9 May 1924, Nikiszowiec and Giszowiec joined the Janów district, which became part of Szopienice in 1947 and of Katowice in 1960; the estate was named a Historic Monument of Poland on 28 January 2011, and since 2011 the old laundry has housed the urban ethnology department of the Museum of Katowice History (Wikipedia, Nikiszowiec; Polish Wikipedia, Nikiszowiec).

What's there

• Nine linked brick blocks - courtyards connected by archways, built from 1908.
• A complete settlement - church, school, shops, laundry and bathhouse in the plan.
• Patterned brickwork - window surrounds and detailing varying block to block.
• Still lived in - a working residential district, not a preserved set.

When to go

April to October. Half a day.

Things to know

People live here - courtyards are private and photography needs some tact. There is little tourist infrastructure beyond a few cafes and the museum branch. The surrounding district is ordinary post-industrial Katowice.

Nearby

Giszowiec, the garden estate by the same architects, is next door.

Key facts