When Poland regained independence in 1918, modern architecture exploded across the newly independent country – the capital, Warsaw, gained its first skyscraper, the Prudential (1933), and clubs with modern technology and revolving dance floors; the coastal fishing village of Gdynia was built up rapidly to become a modernist dream-city; Katowice became a ‘Polish Chicago’ for its Art Deco designs. But this was all to change as war erupted across the region once again in 1939, with the mass destruction of many buildings of Polish modernism across the country. Warsaw itself was razed almost to the ground. 
 
Yet Poland’s architectural story did not stop there, and post-war, there were further efforts to rebuild the country, within its new, post-war borders, and under Soviet control. The rebuilding of Warsaw’s Old Town was a civic miracle, bolstered by the support of Poles from across Poland. Yet a socialist realism also took hold, including in the planned socialist realist settlement Nowa Huta in Kraków. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, a new emphasis in architecture has emerged, including the rebuilding of lost interwar constructions, and the protection of twentieth century heritage