Gdansk Crane (Zuraw)

The Gdansk Crane, or Zuraw, stands on the Motlawa riverfront at Szeroka 67/68 in Gdansk, Poland. It was first recorded in 1367 and was rebuilt after a fire in the 1440s in its present brick form. The structure served two purposes: it was a city gate that opened from the Main Town to the quay, and it was a working crane used to load and unload cargo and to step masts onto ships. Two large wooden wheels inside, driven by people walking inside them as in a treadmill, powered the lift, which could raise loads of about two tonnes to a height of around 27 metres. The building is flanked by two tall brick towers that formed part of the town wall. The Crane is among the most recognisable symbols of Gdansk and of its Hanseatic maritime trade. It was heavily damaged in 1945 and rebuilt in the years after the war, with the wooden machinery re-created and the building adapted for museum use. Today it is a branch of the National Maritime Museum in Gdansk. The exhibition covers the history of the Crane and the port and shows the reconstructed mechanism and the walking wheels, and the displays on the Gdansk port and navigation complement the nearby maritime museum collections and the museum ship Soldek. The curatorial approach is partly thematic and partly technical, aimed at explaining how the machine worked. Visitors can look inside the upper floors and see the wooden structure and the wheels at close quarters. The waterfront setting, with the Motlawa river and the old granaries, makes the exterior as important as the interior.