Polska Filharmonia Bałtycka im. Fryderyka Chopina, Gdańsk

Before you is Polska Filharmonia Bałtycka im. Fryderyka Chopina, a concert hall on Ołowianka Island created within Gdańsk’s former municipal power station. The brick complex was built by Siemens and Halske of Berlin during the closing years of the nineteenth century, then enlarged through nineteen thirteen.

Notice the rosettes, turrets, and paired towers worked into the façade: its Neo-Gothic manner revives medieval Gothic architecture. The site was badly damaged during the war’s closing months, yet the power plant resumed work in August nineteen forty-five and continued until nineteen ninety-six. After its closure, the industrial buildings were remade and extended for the Philharmonic.

The orchestra itself began in nineteen forty-five as Gdańsk’s municipal symphony orchestra, giving its debut performance in Sopot that September. Following decades shared with the opera, the Philharmonic became an independent institution in nineteen ninety-three. Its main hall holds a thousand listeners, and its organ arrived from Lausanne Cathedral, where the Swiss firm Kuhn had built it in nineteen fifty-five.

A bust of Frédéric Chopin, made by Gennady Jerszow, was installed here in two thousand seven. This is a fine Gdańsk transformation: machinery once made electricity here; now the building carries music across the Motława.