DOI Artikel:
Drączkowska, Agnieszka: Działalność Towarzystwa Budowy Osiedli w Gdyni w latach 1931 – 1939
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.45145#0142
Agnieszka
Drączkowska
Activity ofthe Social Housing Association (TBO) in Gdynia in 1931-39
The Social Housing Association (TBO) was established in 1931 by the Gdynia City
Council in order to improve the disastrous living conditions of the indigent. The main
statuary tasks of the company included designing and erecting housing estates, indi-
vidual houses, industrial buildings and shops, as well as parcelling out, exploiting and
preparing land for various projects. The sole owner of the Associations shares was the
City Council, whereas the building activity was financed with loan programmes. TBO
initiators were hoping that this newly established institution would help to satisfy, at
least partially, the growing housing demand, which resulted in a rapid multiplication
of illegal housing estates. These huts, madę of random poor-quality materials were
inhabited mainly by harbour workers who could not afford renting an expensive fiat
in the city centre. In addition to the construction activities, TBO conducted various
social projects meant to raise awareness in hygiene and healthy lifestyle.
Although TBO focused on inexpensive social housing, it cooperated with the best
architects in Gdynia, such as Tadeusz Jędrzejewski and Włodzimierz Prochaska. Their
designs combined pursuit of functionality and longing for economic Solutions. These
targets could be achieved through catalogues of typified houses. Typification, however,
did not exclude aesthetic and materiał differentiation: not only did TBO design modern,
cubic ‘machines for living’, but also used morę traditional forms.
During its interwar activity, the Association parcelled out and developed three
districts: Witomino, Działki Teśne, and Redłowo. Witomino, parcelled in 1933, was
intended for workers and craftsmen, whereas Działki Teśne and Redłowo mainly for
clerks. TBO preferred to build housing estates consisting of smali single-family or
semi-detached houses surrounded by gardens, rather than blocks of flats: in 1931-39,
the Association erected over 200 independent houses and only 4 multi-family buildings.
The majority of the estates designed by TBO is based on the garden-city model.
This utopian idea, thoroughly explored by Modernist architects and town-planners,
was examined on the example of the TBO estates in Gdynia. The significance of
a garden as a private, separate space was proved by the results of a survey conducted
among the working class dwellers in 1937 - a vast majority of the respondents acknowl-
edged the superiority of an individual house with a garden over an apartment in a błock
of flats.
Drączkowska
Activity ofthe Social Housing Association (TBO) in Gdynia in 1931-39
The Social Housing Association (TBO) was established in 1931 by the Gdynia City
Council in order to improve the disastrous living conditions of the indigent. The main
statuary tasks of the company included designing and erecting housing estates, indi-
vidual houses, industrial buildings and shops, as well as parcelling out, exploiting and
preparing land for various projects. The sole owner of the Associations shares was the
City Council, whereas the building activity was financed with loan programmes. TBO
initiators were hoping that this newly established institution would help to satisfy, at
least partially, the growing housing demand, which resulted in a rapid multiplication
of illegal housing estates. These huts, madę of random poor-quality materials were
inhabited mainly by harbour workers who could not afford renting an expensive fiat
in the city centre. In addition to the construction activities, TBO conducted various
social projects meant to raise awareness in hygiene and healthy lifestyle.
Although TBO focused on inexpensive social housing, it cooperated with the best
architects in Gdynia, such as Tadeusz Jędrzejewski and Włodzimierz Prochaska. Their
designs combined pursuit of functionality and longing for economic Solutions. These
targets could be achieved through catalogues of typified houses. Typification, however,
did not exclude aesthetic and materiał differentiation: not only did TBO design modern,
cubic ‘machines for living’, but also used morę traditional forms.
During its interwar activity, the Association parcelled out and developed three
districts: Witomino, Działki Teśne, and Redłowo. Witomino, parcelled in 1933, was
intended for workers and craftsmen, whereas Działki Teśne and Redłowo mainly for
clerks. TBO preferred to build housing estates consisting of smali single-family or
semi-detached houses surrounded by gardens, rather than blocks of flats: in 1931-39,
the Association erected over 200 independent houses and only 4 multi-family buildings.
The majority of the estates designed by TBO is based on the garden-city model.
This utopian idea, thoroughly explored by Modernist architects and town-planners,
was examined on the example of the TBO estates in Gdynia. The significance of
a garden as a private, separate space was proved by the results of a survey conducted
among the working class dwellers in 1937 - a vast majority of the respondents acknowl-
edged the superiority of an individual house with a garden over an apartment in a błock
of flats.