Iglica, Wrocław

Here is Iglica, a needle-like steel monument beside Centennial Hall. It went up in nineteen forty-eight for the Exhibition of the Recovered Territories. Polish Communist planners selected Stanisław Hempel’s design as an emblem of Polish Wrocław and Polish engineering, placing it beside a hall associated with German origins.

When new, the shaft rose to a hundred and six metres. Its intended crowning feature was a revolving arrangement of mirrors, made to send an umbrella of light into the night. Lightning destroyed that device within a day, before the exhibition’s formal opening.

After renovation, the monument lost ten metres and now measures ninety metres. Its severe, uninterrupted line makes that lost light-machine feel like an especially strange chapter in its story. In April two thousand five, Iglica received Poland’s Historic Monument designation together with Centennial Hall, the Four Domes Pavilion, and the Pergola. That recognition makes this sharp postwar statement part of the whole landmark ensemble around it.