Baszta Kotwiczników, Gdańsk

Baszta Kotwiczników is a historic fortified tower beside the Old Motława in Gdańsk’s Main City, near Podwale Przedmiejskie. Notice the tower’s severe, compact outline: it began as a practical piece of the city’s defences. It was built in thirteen sixty-one on a square footprint to strengthen the southern fortifications and protect the former shipyard grounds at today’s Lastadia Street.

Its Gothic character comes from the medieval architectural tradition that shaped it. When Gdańsk shifted its outer ring of defences, the tower’s military purpose faded. Paulus van der Horne converted it into a city prison between fifteen seventy and fifteen seventy-five, raising the roof slightly and reserving the building for especially dangerous offenders.

From eighteen sixty-five, it served as the Main City’s principal police jail. War nearly erased this small survivor: during the Second World War it lost its roof, interior floors, and an entire south-western corner. Reconstruction returned it to the cityscape during the late nineteen sixties. Later it became a base for heritage-conservation services, and it now carries a quieter cultural afterlife connected with periodical publishing.