Most Pokoju, Wrocław

Most Pokoju spans the Odra’s main channel on a crossing created after the Second World War. It stands where the Lessing Bridge, damaged so badly in the 1945 siege of Festung Breslau that rebuilding was abandoned, once carried the route across the river. Long before either bridge, this was a link between the timber market on the south bank and the Sand Suburb on the north side.

In 1875, that earlier passage gave way to a four-span steel truss bridge designed by Alexander Kaumann and named for the Enlightenment dramatist Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. The bridge before you opened in 1959 under the name Wojewódzki Bridge, and became Most Pokoju in 1966. Its three spans stretch 125.3 metres, carrying broad road lanes, pavements, and a double tram line.

Notice the trams passing through the centre: during the 2003 reconstruction, their tracks were moved between the carriageways. At the northern end, a granite memorial plaque remains from an unrealised plan for a monument celebrating the return of Poland’s western and northern lands.