Grabowska-Hawrylak arrived in Wrocław in 1945, a year after Breslau had been fought over street by street, and graduated from the local technical university in 1950. Her first job was reconstructing burgher houses on the market square; she then joined Miastoprojekt, the state design office, and stayed for a working life spent on housing and schools. She is remembered for a reputation she never sought. The Plac Grunwaldzki estate was drawn as white towers with planting spilling from rounded balcony frames, a Mediterranean idea for a grey city; the budget was cut, the concrete went up unpainted, and the result was catalogued as brutalism. She kept designing until 1993 and lived long enough to see the estate repainted white in 2015, close to what she had drawn.
