Krzywy Domek, Sopot

This is Krzywy Domek, an unusually shaped building in Sopot whose Polish name translates as “Crooked House.” Along the façade, notice the wavy outline: walls, glazing, and roofline seem to have slipped free of ordinary geometry. It was completed in 2004, occupies about 4,000 square metres, and forms part of the Rezydent shopping centre.

Architects Szotyńscy & Zaleski created it after drawing on the storybook art of Jan Marcin Szancer and Per Dahlberg. Its postmodern character—a late-modern manner that welcomes playful distortion and irony—fits that imaginative source. Inside, the building contains retail spaces, eating places, bars, a sushi venue, a café, a beauty and body-shaping salon, and a games venue.

It also houses regional offices for RMF FM and RMF Maxxx. Entrances connect it with Monte Cassino and Morska Streets. Krzywy Domek turns an everyday commercial building into a piece of fairy-tale architecture, while remaining very much part of Sopot’s street life.