European Solidarity Centre

The European Solidarity Centre features a rusted, ship-hull exterior of Corten steel that rises sharply above the former Lenin Shipyard. This building commemorates the birth of the Solidarity trade union, the movement that challenged communist rule in Poland during the nineteen eighties. In nineteen eighty, shipyard electrician Lech Walesa jumped over the high concrete wall here to join striking workers. That act of defiance ignited a peaceful revolution that eventually dismantled the Soviet-aligned government and spread democratic change across the entire Eastern Bloc.