European Solidarity Centre (Gdansk)

Grand Opening: European Solidarity Centre - Soon, the European Solidarity Centre will start welcoming its first guests. At its core it a permanent multimedia exhibition. It carries the story of the Solidarity and other opposition movements which gave the spark, that in no time, turned into a communist bashing roaring fire.

European Solidarity Centre is located next to the entrance to Gdańsk Shipyards – a historical place, where opposition to the Polish communist regime was born. This 5 storey building has exhibition rooms, a library, conference rooms and offices taken by various NGOs rent free.

Housed in a mind-bogglingly ugly, oh-so 21st-century hulk of architecture, the exhibition in this unmarked centre (finding the entrance will be your first task) has quickly become one of Gdańsk's unmissables since it opened in 2014.

The European Solidarity Center (Europejskie Centrum Solidarności, ECS), which opened its doors in Gdańsk, Poland, in August 2014, is neither the first nor the last historical museum to be opened or soon to be opened in Poland. Maybe this is what led the museum’s founders, grouped around political scientist Basil Kerski, to emphasize the distinguishing characteristic of their institution, proclaiming it to be the “world’s first museum of solidarity with a capital and a lowercase S.” The center therefore has two ambitious aims: presenting museum exhibits on the history of Poland’s Solidarity movement as well as on the present-day meaning of solidarity as a social value. At the same time it tries to grasp these two as an “important aspect of Europe’s founding myth.” In short, the new museum-makers in Gdańsk seem to be aiming high.

European Solidarity Centre, Gdansk: See 1,955 reviews, articles, and 1,166 photos of European Solidarity Centre, ranked No.2 on TripAdvisor among 159 attractions in Gdansk.

Visit the Europejskie Centrum Solidarności.

The huge construction you can see next to the entrance to the Gdansk Shipyards is the new European Solidarity Centre which opened on August 30, 2014, the 34th anniversary of the signing of the August Accords. The 5-storey building, which has been designed to give the impression of walls cracking and tilting and is covered in rust-coloured sheet metal reminiscent of a ship’s hull, has been a project many years in the making.

Solidarności Square. The impressive rusty block resembles a ship’s hull. This characteristic expressive building covered with corten steel dominates the landscape of the former shipyard terrain.

The usable area of the new ESC building, amounts to nearly 26 thousand square metres. Apart from the permanent exhibition, space for temporary exhibitions has been planned as well, a library and a reading room, a mediatheque, a research and science centre, an education and training centre and creative workshop laboratories for the young.

At the European Solidarity Centre in Gdansk, our partner Roltis has realized this beautiful trapezium. The trapezium is 16 meters high and 3,6 meters wide. In spite of the large fin louvers already located on the outside, this centre of solidarity had a strong need for additional glare control.

The European Solidarity Centre (Polish: Europejskie Centrum Solidarności) is a museum and library in Gdańsk, Poland, devoted to the history of Solidarity, the Polish trade union and civil resistance movement, and other opposition movements of Communist Eastern Europe. It opened on 31 August 2014.