It represented a type with front and rear edifices partitioned by a courtyard.

History

The initially wooden building was inhabited by various craftsmen. The first written mentions about the house come from 1507, when it belonged to Piotr Swądro, followed by Jan Piguł, pharmacist Piotr, furrier Stanisław Chilacz and tin caster Aleksy Wrzeszcz (Gocz). From 1566 it was the property of the family of coppersmiths and furriers - Piotrowski. It is known that in 1607 the fire destroyed nearly all houses in Krzywe Koło street. In 1631 Bartosz Psota (Gierka or Giezka) erected a masonry tenement house. In the years 1655-1669 it belonged to Franciszek Wołczyński, who most likely erected the rear edifice. In the 17th century the plots on the eastern frontage of Krzywe Koło gradually increased their area towards the Vistula, absorbing the wall and the street next to it, as the wall lost its defensive significance. Then, the tenement house belonged to Dawid Zappio, later to become a mayor. In 1673 it was devastated. In 1699 it was a building with 2 storeys with an attic and a wooden rear edifice. At that time it became property of a salesman and mayor Aleksander Czamer, who reconstructed the building and extended it upwards by one storey before 1702. The tenement house, ruined again, changed an owner in 1768 to become property of a standard-bearer of Warsaw and a starost of Sękocin, Szydłowski. In 1807 it served as accommodation for veterans of Napoleon wars from Italian legions. Until 1819 it belonged to the Mack family, later to the Dorantowicz family, Grabowski, the Rakowski family and from 1907 to the Przedpełski family. In the second half of the 19th century numerous Jews lived in Krzywe Koło street. In 1869 the plot no. 12 hosted a skins warehouse of Icek Heitler and a house of prayers of Chaim Tarder. The tenement house consisted of a front house, a masonry link and a prominent rear building located a little lower, on the slope of the scarp. Until 1915 both buildings constituted a single property. Around 1900, as a result of alteration works, the front building gained a fourth storey and a tall attic with two rows of dormers, plus a niche with a sculpture of the Mother of God in the front façade. Photos shot in 1942 show the tenement house in that shape. The figure of Mother Mary was located in a niche terminating in a concha, as part of the three-axial façade, between the second and the third offset axis, on the second floor. In the parterre separated by a cornice, adorned with striped rustication, there was a rectangular window and a wide gate passage surrounded by stone blocks. Similarly as the majority of the buildings in the Old Town, the tenement house was destroyed in 1944 as a result of acts of war. Only the basement and the façade survived. The latter was demolished prior to the reconstruction carried out in 1954 according to the design of Stefan Krasiński. The reconstruction was inspired in terms of style by the architecture of the Old Town from the past, at the same time adapting it to the required standards of a residential district. The number of storeys and façade axes and the stylistic features of the window surrounds were preserved from the prewar appearance of the front building. The arrangement of interiors, the structure of the roof with a newly introduced lantern and the layout of parterre openings were modified. The former rear building was reconstructed as a building under the address of 39/41 Brzozowa Street, separated from the tenement house by a reconstructed former street running along the walls. Decorations of the façade using the sgraffito technique and polychrome in fresco were performed by Edmund Burke in collaboration with Janina Ignatowska. Ever-present shortage of materials during the postwar reconstruction as well as the pace of works imposed by the authorities were reflected in the quality. The dilapidating layers of plaster were subject to renovation multiple times and required numerous supplementations. The works carried out in 2016 restored an aesthetic appearance of formerly highly damaged façades.

Description

The tenement house is situated within a cluster of compact Old Town development, in the eastern frontage of Krzywe Koło Street, at the outlet of the western branch of this street turning at a right angle. The tenement house is made of brick, has four floors and includes 17th-century basements. It is covered by a gable roof with dormers, crowned with an upper annex called a lantern, which also features a gable roof clad with roof tiles. The tenement house was designed on a rectangular floor plan. After the postwar reconstruction it was linked in the interior with the neighbouring building from the north. The façades of residential storeys are three-axial with an axis offset from the south and are terminated with a crowning cornice. A wide door portal, framed by rusticated stone surround crowned with a basket-handle arch with a keystone, leads from the front to the Słowacki Institute located on the ground floor. Its size and decoration is reminiscent of an old gate passage that stood in its place in the past. Stylistically, it corresponds to an equally wide window in a stone surround, terminating in a segmental arch, that is located next to it. The windows on upper storeys of both façades are adorned with plaster surrounds and cornices under the window sills, while those on the first and second floor of the façade are additionally crowned with cornices. On the rear façade, three rectangular windows of the parterre are framed by wide stone surrounds. The entire front façade is covered with sgraffito ornamentation enriched by portrait tondi and cartouches. On the first and second floor there is a painted decoration, whose topic revolves around music, which might be a refence to the history of the street inhabited by numerous musicians, such as Jan Stefani, a violinist and composer of, among others, an opera to a libretto of Wojciech Bogusławski “The Presumed Miracle, or Cracovians and Highlanders.” The narrow parts of the wall between the windows of the first and second axis feature still lives with instruments and the wider spaces between the second and third axis include figurative scenes presenting a harp player and an organ grinder above.

The structure can be viewed from the outside.

Compiled by Małgorzata Laskowska-Adamowicz, National Institute of Cultural Heritage, Regional Branch in Warsaw. 11-07-2017

Bibliography

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