Huta Szkła Lucyna, or Glass-works Lucyna, is an old Glassware Factory just over the German border in Poland.
This amazing location has been visited by a few Polish explorers in the weekend, so when we were in Poland last June, we figured, let's try and see if we can also get in during the week.
Unfortunately for us, when we arrived, it turned out that a few workers were busy fixing up some holes in the roof and a security guy was present to accompany them.
So naturally, we asked the security guy if it was ok to take some pic's.
He was fine in general, but he couldn't allow us to do this, without official permission from the administrations office. Since Poland is know for their love for paperwork, we figured it was almost impossible to get this arranged, but well, since we were there now anyway, let's give it a shot.
Once we found the administrations office, we managed to get in to discuss with a lady who seems to have the authority to get things done. As it turned out, this lady was the Mayor of the whole district an she was initially very reluctant even consider giving us permission to visit the site.
However, after we explained that we were not going to earn any money by selling the photo's from this place and that she could get a copy of the pictures for promotional use (as long as she clearly stated our names), she was kind of fine with the idea and called the security guy to show us around.
A few restrictions were unfortunate applied; We couldn't enter some of the buildings due to the bad shape and the workshop + chemicals department were "off-limit".
The rest, including the directors office, museum and general tour around the site was allowed.
A bit of history;
This enormous factory was started in 1919 under the name "Nysa". At it's peak, the factory employed over 2500 employees, had state of the art equipment and techniques and cared about it's workers. They build accommodation on site for some of them, created a bar for after-hour pleasure and generally paid the workers a fair amount of money.
After the 2nd world war, the company was taken over by a Polish investor and changed it name into "Huta Szkła Lucyna".
Due to the modernization of the glass industry and especially automation, the company eventually couldn't keep up with the competition anymore and went bankrupt in 2007, after various reorganizations.
The owner then tried to turn the whole site into a museum and he even managed to get sponsorship of the EU, for 80% of the needed money (80 million zloty), as long as he would be able to provide the remaining 20% in a matter of a few months.
Unfortunately he didn't manage to get the required 20% and so the deal was off.
Now, they simply do some necessary maintenance work in order to keep the site from deteriorating even further... So far no real plans have been presented that are financially viable and so the site remains "rotting" away.. Until a viable plan is presented.
Here are a few of the pics that I managed to take at this awesome location:
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8#
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10#
11#
12#
13#
14#
15#
A few more pic's on my Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/urbexosaurus/
Thanks 4 watching!
This amazing location has been visited by a few Polish explorers in the weekend, so when we were in Poland last June, we figured, let's try and see if we can also get in during the week.
Unfortunately for us, when we arrived, it turned out that a few workers were busy fixing up some holes in the roof and a security guy was present to accompany them.
So naturally, we asked the security guy if it was ok to take some pic's.
He was fine in general, but he couldn't allow us to do this, without official permission from the administrations office. Since Poland is know for their love for paperwork, we figured it was almost impossible to get this arranged, but well, since we were there now anyway, let's give it a shot.
Once we found the administrations office, we managed to get in to discuss with a lady who seems to have the authority to get things done. As it turned out, this lady was the Mayor of the whole district an she was initially very reluctant even consider giving us permission to visit the site.
However, after we explained that we were not going to earn any money by selling the photo's from this place and that she could get a copy of the pictures for promotional use (as long as she clearly stated our names), she was kind of fine with the idea and called the security guy to show us around.
A few restrictions were unfortunate applied; We couldn't enter some of the buildings due to the bad shape and the workshop + chemicals department were "off-limit".
The rest, including the directors office, museum and general tour around the site was allowed.
A bit of history;
This enormous factory was started in 1919 under the name "Nysa". At it's peak, the factory employed over 2500 employees, had state of the art equipment and techniques and cared about it's workers. They build accommodation on site for some of them, created a bar for after-hour pleasure and generally paid the workers a fair amount of money.
After the 2nd world war, the company was taken over by a Polish investor and changed it name into "Huta Szkła Lucyna".
Due to the modernization of the glass industry and especially automation, the company eventually couldn't keep up with the competition anymore and went bankrupt in 2007, after various reorganizations.
The owner then tried to turn the whole site into a museum and he even managed to get sponsorship of the EU, for 80% of the needed money (80 million zloty), as long as he would be able to provide the remaining 20% in a matter of a few months.
Unfortunately he didn't manage to get the required 20% and so the deal was off.
Now, they simply do some necessary maintenance work in order to keep the site from deteriorating even further... So far no real plans have been presented that are financially viable and so the site remains "rotting" away.. Until a viable plan is presented.
Here are a few of the pics that I managed to take at this awesome location:
1#
2#
3#
4#
5#
6#
7#
8#
9#
10#
11#
12#
13#
14#
15#
A few more pic's on my Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/urbexosaurus/
Thanks 4 watching!
