Zandka Estate in Zabrze

Zandka is a company housing estate in the centre of Zabrze, built in 1903–1922 in the garden-city spirit for workers of the Donnersmarck ironworks. Around 40 multi-family houses of brick and half-timbering, with steep roofs and projecting bays, line streets planted with plane trees that still stand today. Nearby survives a steel house from 1927, assembled in just 26 days.

History: from the Castle Colony to the Sandkolonie

Settlement here dates back to 1775, when Mathias von Wilczek had a dozen or so houses built for colonists near Zabrze castle – the area was then called the Castle Colony. After the castle was demolished it became known as the Sandkolonie, the "colony on the sand", after its poor sandy soil; in Silesian dialect, Zandka. As the Donnersmarck ironworks grew, so did the need for housing, and in 1903–1922 a new estate for workers and clerks was built here, planned at the time as a luxury development.

After the ironworks closed the estate declined, but it kept its original layout. On 2 August 2012 the historic ensemble was entered in the register of monuments, and on 17 September 2012 Zandka became a separate district of Zabrze. The city is regenerating it with EU funding, including converting the former gasworks into a social services centre.

What to see

• The houses on Krakusa, Stalmacha, Lazara and Tomeczka streets – brick, partly half-timbered, with steep roofs and projecting bays that housed what were then modern toilets reached from every half-landing.
• The plane-tree avenues lining the estate's streets.
• The steel house at Cmentarna 7d – a four-flat building whose walls are made of eight modules cast at the nearby ironworks.
• The gasworks buildings, the oldest of which date from the 1870s.
• The Jewish cemetery adjoining the estate and the historic Protestant cemetery.

Did you know?

The Donnersmarcks gave the colony full amenities: a school, a nursery and an old people's home, and a little further away a casino (now the Teatr Nowy), a library (now home to the Zabrze Philharmonic), an indoor pool, a gym and a park. The steel house on Cmentarna was built by a team of 16; each of its four flats had two rooms and a kitchen and about 50 m². According to the Murator magazine it is probably the oldest steel house in Europe, and Zabrze has five such buildings today.

Tripto tips

Zandka is a lived-in neighbourhood and some buildings are in poor condition, so walk respectfully and do not enter stairwells uninvited. About an hour is enough for the main streets and the steel house. Spring and summer are best, when the plane trees give shade. The walk combines easily with Zabrze's other industrial heritage sites in the city centre.