Giszowiec (German: Gieschewald) is a historic company town, a part and an eastern district of the city of Katowice (Silesian Voivodeship, Poland), created as a coal miners' settlement in 1907. Initially consisting of about 3,300 miners and their families, the district's population have grown over the years to over 18,000. Although Giszowiec's architectural originality suffered major damages in the 1970s and 1980s due to large scale urbanization, its early unique character can be still felt in the surviving miners' housings, the marketplace, numerous individual buildings and structures, as well as the relatively well preserved general design of a "Garden city".
Giszowiec consists of large-panel-system buildings and historic houses, mostly single- and two-family, which once formed a compact mining housing estate that remains unique in Europe to this day and is part of the Silesian Industrial Monuments Route. It was built for miners working at the Giesche Coal Mine (later the ) by the company, commissioned by its director between 1907 and 1910. The housing estate was designed by . Two-thirds of the mining settlement was demolished in the 1970s as a result of the development of high-rise large-panel-system buildings for employees of the Staszic Coal Mine, established in 1964.
Giszowiec is mainly a residential and industrial area. It is surrounded by two major transportation routes: national road 86 and the A4 motorway, and national road 81 begins there. The district covers an area of 12.03 km² (7.30% of the city's total area) and had a population of 15,719 in 2019.
Geography
Location
Giszowiec is located in the Silesian Voivodeship and is one of the administrative districts of the city of Katowice (No. 17), situated in the eastern part of the city. It lies some 7 kilometers southeast from the center of Katowice. The settlement is somewhat isolated from other Katowice districts and is surrounded by green areas and forests. It borders the districts of Osiedle Paderewskiego-Muchowiec and Janów-Nikiszowiec to the north, the city of Mysłowice to the east, the Murcki district to the south, and Piotrowice-Ochojec to the west. The district's boundaries are:
from the north – along the southern edge of 73 Pułku Piechoty Street to the intersection with , then along the A4 motorway and the northern edge of to the city boundary, from the east – the district boundary also serves as the city boundary with Mysłowice, from the south and west – along the city boundary to the junction with and further along the forest road to 73 Pułku Piechoty Street.
Giszowiec is located in the valley of the . According to physio-geographical regionalization, the district is located in the mesoregion, which forms the southern part of the Silesian Upland. Historically, it forms part of eastern Upper Silesia.
Geology, terrain and soils
According to Jerzy Kondracki's physical-geographical classification, Giszowiec is located in the subprovince, within the Silesian Upland, in the southern part of the Katowice Upland, while in terms of morphological units, the district is situated on the Murcki Plateau. The northern slopes, descending toward the Rawa depression, are dissected by two long valleys, including the Bolina, which flows through Giszowiec. Large areas of Tertiary denudational flats are found there at elevations above 300 m above sea level. The highest point of Giszowiec, located in the southwestern part of the district, reaches an elevation of 300–310 m above sea level, while the lowest point is in the Bolina valley (approximately 260 m above sea level).
The landscape of Giszowiec has undergone significant changes as a result of human economic activity, mainly due to the extraction of raw materials, industrial development, and the construction of transportation infrastructure. Giszowiec also has mining spoil tips, and subsidence processes are occurring there, resulting in the formation of artificial ponds in depressions. Giszowiec is prone to Category I ground deformation in the northern, eastern, and southern parts. The apartment buildings in Osiedle Adama are resistant to Category II ground deformation. The area is also prone to rock mass tremors.
The largest degraded and devastated area is the post-mining spoil tip at the Staszic Coal Mine, covering 12 hectares. It reaches a height of 20 meters on the eastern side and 7 meters on the western side. Its final shape was formed in the mid-1990s. It is overgrown with ruderal vegetation (the slopes are wooded, and low shrubs grow at the top).
In terms of geological structure, Giszowiec is located in the . The formations filling the basin date from the Upper Carboniferous and consist of shales, sandstones, and conglomerates with seams of coal that formed over 300 million years ago. The outcrops of these rocks, found over a significant area of Giszowiec, consist mainly of the Orzesze layers (predominantly shales, including clay shales, which were used by brickworks in Giszowiec, among other places). In the river valleys, however, there are post-glacial Pleistocene formations in the form of fluvisols, silts, sands, and river gravels. Areas of Holocene tills are also present in Giszowiec.
The majority of Giszowiec is covered by luvisols formed from tills as well as loamy and silty sands. They are quite fertile, and their pH is slightly acidic or neutral. Fluvisols have developed in the river valleys. As a result of human activity, they have also undergone transformations in many places, leading to the formation of anthrosols. In terms of soil quality class, the soils in Giszowiec are mainly classified as poor and very poor (classes V and VI).
Surface and groundwater
Giszowiec is located in the drainage basin, which is part of the Vistula basin. The source of the Bolina is situated near the district, southwest of its center. Within Giszowiec, the Bolina flows northeast and eventually joins the Czarna Przemsza. In terms of water quality, the Bolina at its confluence with the Czarna Przemsza was classified as Class V in 2006, which represents the lowest water quality class, making the water unsuitable for use.
As a result of human activity, anthropogenic water bodies have formed in Giszowiec, located mainly in the Bolina valley. These are: , , , and other smaller floodplains. The largest of these is the Barbara reservoir, with an area of 4.02 ha.
Giszowiec is located within the Silesian-Kraków hydrogeological region. Aquifers are present there in all stratigraphic layers, but their significance depends on geological and hydrogeological factors as well as human influence. There are no major groundwater reservoirs beneath Giszowiec, while the district is covered by groundwater body No. 134. The groundwater balance is significantly influenced by mining activities related to mine dewatering.
Climate
The climate of Giszowiec does not differ significantly from that of Katowice as a whole. The area has a transitional temperate climate, with oceanic influences predominating over continental ones. Westerly winds dominate (accounting for about 60% of the total), followed to a lesser extent by easterly and southerly winds. The average annual temperature for the 1961–2005 period at the nearby station in is 8.1°C, but the urban heat island effect is also noticeable there, which locally modifies the air temperature. The warmest month is July (17.8°C), and the coldest is January (–2.2°C). The average annual sunshine duration for the 1966–2005 period was 1,474 hours. The average annual precipitation for the 1951–2005 period was 713.8 mm.
Nature and environmental protection
Giszowiec is characterized by a high proportion of green spaces within the district's total area. It was once part of the former . Beech and hornbeam-oak forests were the predominant vegetation on the Murcki Plateau. River valleys, meanwhile, were covered with riparian forests. Giszowiec began to undergo transformations with the construction of the housing estate and the start of coal mining in the early 20th century. Along with the expansion of human activity, changes also occurred in the environment, including the landscape (spoil tips and sinkholes), the hydrological network (the channeling of rivers and the creation of artificial reservoirs), and the flora and fauna. Some large animals have become extinct (of the large ones, only red deer and wild boar remain), while new species associated with open areas have appeared. In addition, non-native plant and animal species have also appeared. In water bodies, they have established themselves naturally, and have also been intentionally introduced by humans (mainly fish).
Giszowiec currently encompasses a section of the , which is a large forest complex. Part of the forests within the district, near the border with Piotrowice-Ochojec, is protected as the nature and landscape reserve. This area is covered by riparian forest with a well-preserved tree stand. There are also stands of Veratrum lobelianum, a mountain plant. Frogs and toads can be found in the undergrowth, and numerous bird species, such as blackbirds, tits, nuthatches, and woodpeckers, nest in the trees.
The urbanized areas of Giszowiec are home to over 30 natural monuments, found mainly in parks (primarily in ). These are largely beech and oak trees. One of the historic trees is the now-dead , planted in 1907, which won second place in 2011 in a poll organized by Gaja Club for Tree of the Year.
Giszowiec was designed based on the garden city concept. During the design process, as much of the old beech and oak-hornbeam forest stand as possible was preserved. A green center was designated in the heart of the district, with development zones arranged around it. A buffer zone was created on the outskirts. Currently, the following squares and landscaped green areas are located within Giszowiec:
– a fragment of riparian forest with water bodies located in the Bolina valley, west of Pszczyńska Street, where a recreational center has been established. It is home to populations of protected and rare plants, as well as protected amphibians. The total area is 33.5 hectares. – a square located at the intersection of Wojciecha and Barbórki streets, established by a resolution of the Katowice City Council on 26 October 2016, – a park located in the central part of the district, at , covering an area of 3.39 ha, Forest in the quarter bounded by Pszczyńska, , Wojciecha, and Barbórki streets – it is managed extensively and contains an old beech forest of high natural value, which is partially protected. The area covers 4.43 ha.
Allotment gardens in Giszowiec are administered by the Silesian Regional Board of the Polish Allotment Gardeners' Association, Katowice Branch. The first gardens in Giszowiec were established in 1953 – the first of these was the Barbara Workers' Allotment Gardens, and in 1975, the Staszic Allotment Garden Association was organized on wasteland near the Roździeński shaft. The table below presents basic data on the allotment gardens currently located in Giszowiec:
Name Location Area(ha) Number of plots(2007) Barbara 120 Mysłowicka Street 5.23 110 Staszica Kosmiczna Street 3.45 130
Name
The name of Giszowiec derives from the surname of and is a Polonized version of the German name Gieschewald (Giesche's forest); the surname Giesche was phonetically adapted to Gisz, with the suffix -owiec added. This name was given to the estate by the mining and metallurgical company (Heirs of Giesche). The German name has both a commemorative (derived from the surname of the former landowner) and topographical character, as the estate was established on the edge of a forest and planned according to the urban concept of a garden city.