Every design for Polkowice

By the Ławeczka górnika, the miner's bench, Polkowice tells you straight away what it is about. A few steps on, the Wieża szybowa, a mining headframe, stands as a monument in the town it helped to build.

Polkowice is unusual because copper made it. It lies in the largest copper-mining area in Poland, with a processing plant nearby, and since 1998 a Volkswagen engine plant has given the town a second big employer. Yet its story goes back much further: legend says Duke Bolesław I the Tall built a hunting lodge here, and the town's name grew out of his. Napoleon passed through twice. After the war the empty town was settled again by Poles, many from the former eastern borderlands, and for two decades it was not even officially a town.

Today the Park Śródmiejski and Park Bracki give it green breathing space. Picture the shift changing at dusk, and the headframe outlined against the Silesian sky.