Baszta Słomiana, Gdańsk

Baszta Słomiana is an octagonal defensive tower in Gdańsk’s Main Town, directly beside the Great Armoury. Notice the sharply faceted mass of the tower and the cone-shaped roof that caps it. Built from brick in the latter half of the fourteenth century, it strengthened the western stretch of Gdańsk’s medieval defenses.

Its Gothic construction belongs to a medieval manner marked by pointed forms and brickwork rather than carved stone. The tower’s present form was established during the early fifteenth century. At its base, the walls are as much as four metres thick.

A store room in the lowest level reveals its original role as a redoubt meant to hold out independently for a long siege. It later became a powder tower. In nineteen forty-five, the roof and the upper portions of its walls were destroyed, then rebuilt in nineteen fifty. Today, rooms within the tower belong to the Academy of Fine Arts, giving this old defensive structure a creative new purpose.