Discussion on Baltic Towers at the Comission's meeting in Gdansk

The Commission held its seminar and meeting in Gdansk, Poland, on 2-4 April 2009. The seminar theme was "Baltic Towers - Contribution to the City and the Community". According to the American definition, high-rise buildings are less than 150 metres high and skyscrapers are higher than 150 metres. The seminar theme was a burning question around the Baltic Sea Region, as many cities were trying to find their identity and at the same time find ways to accommodate future growth and avoid further urban sprawl. One possibility is efficient and dense development - and redevelopment - in the inner city. High rise buildings may be a solution, but a complex one, as they also evoke difficult questions about transformation of landscape, design, safety, transport and car parking, as well as physical, social, economic and environmental impacts. A demand for high-rise buildings is also connected to global economy - the higher the stock exchange rates are, the stronger is the demand for high rise buildings. The Commission tried a new method of approaching the theme by sending a questionnaire to the members of the UBC network, and although the number of answers was limited, they all were interesting. It is clear that high rise buildings are a "hot" issue in many bigger cities, but the approach to the question varies a lot from eagerness to carefulness.

There were very interesting presentations about high-rise buildings, how they fitted in their environment and how different the policies of urban planning in the Baltic cities were. We saw and heard controversial examples from Aarhus, Rostock, Malrno, Gdynia, Riga, Tallinn and Helsinki. We also heard about a very interesting study of Growth Possibilities for Baltic Cities that awoke many thoughts about creative possibilities for the future in cities around the Baltic. A workshop about a plan to build high-rise buildings in Wrzeszcz, a vivid but somewhat confusing commercial centre close to the centre of Gdansk was an essential part of the seminar. Hopefully, the Gdansk Development Agency received new ideas and perspectives to conti n ue its work on developing this area.

The next seminar under the theme Sustainability in Urban Planning will be held in Linkóping, Sweden, on 9 -12 September 2009.