Abstract

Revitalization of public open spaces is a complex enterprise in Poland in terms of the art, cultural andinformation aspects of this process. Simultaneously the public space should play an important role whenbuilding the quality of revitalization programs and the quality of city development. The new art and culturalactivities are the revitalization tools, which are also the good examples of bottom up ideas helping to start aprocess of change in the degraded urban areas.The art and cultural projects, both in Young City of Gdansk (former shipyard areas) or in the Dolne Miasto(historical, degraded city centre district of Gdansk) shows that it is a real need of implementing such ideasand treating them as an important urban operational tools of the revitalization program.The Wyspa Progress Fundation and the LAZNIA Center for Contemporary Art are very interestinginitiatives which not only enable to transform the public space but also help to bring art into the urban space.The Wyspa Institute of Art is located in the building of the former Basic Shipbuilding School in the GdanskShipyard. It has become a home of the Wyspa Progress Foundation, an innovative artistic organizationcombining the presentation of contemporary art with reflections on the shape of social culture.LAZNIA Centre for Contemporary Art is an animator of a new artistic project whose aim is to create apermanent collection of artworks in the urban space, called the Outdoor Gallery of the City of Gdansk. It issupposed to act as a stimulus to change the character of the district, where the institution is located. It shouldjoin the process of social and architectural transformation of this run-down district of Gdansk, called theDolne Miasto, cooperating in a long-term revitalization plan.Both projects (The Wyspa Progress Foundation and the LAZNIA Centre for Contemporary Art ) are startingto be the catalyst of change in the revitalization areas of Gdansk. Due to revitalization process the degradedurban structure should be closer to meet the needs of people in their everyday life.

Author (1)