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Town hall - Zabytek.pl

Address
Jarocin, Rynek 1

Location
woj. wielkopolskie, pow. jarociński, gm. Jarocin - miasto

The Baroque Revival town hall in Jarocin is an example of a building designed for the local magistrates in a small town in Greater Poland.

The town hall was erected in the years 1799-1804 on the site where its predecessors, built back in the 14th-18th centuries, used to stand. The town hall attained its current form as a result of alteration works performed in years 1854 and 1907.

History

The earliest mentions of the town of Jarocin date back to 1257, when the town was mentioned in the charter granted by Bolesław the Pious to a man named Janek, a comes palatinus (count palatine - a type of royal dignitary) and member of the noble family of Zaremba. Even though Jarocin is referred to as a town in the document in question, one must emphasise that it had not been a proper town at the time. It has only received municipal rights in the final quarter of the 13th century. It is likely that a wooden town hall was erected on the market square in Jarocin back in the 14th century; however, no further information about this building is available today. The earliest mentions of the town hall in Jarocin date back to the second half of the 17th century. This town hall - a distinctive edifice with a tall gable roof crowned with a slender turret - is shown on the earliest known picture of Jarocin from 1661. However, due to poor technical condition, the decision was taken towards the end of the 17th century to demolish the existing town hall and erect a new one. Shortly thereafter, this new building was lost, most likely as a result of a fire. In 1773, another conflagration swept across the town, destroying the wooden town hall that stood in the middle of the market square. Since that time, the town of Jarocin was forced to function without a proper town hall. It was only in 1799 when Franciszek Jarociński, the erstwhile owner of the town, entered into an agreement with the burghers in which he promised to erect a new town hall. The construction works were initially overseen by an engineer named Dreffenfeld; later on, they were continued by Gottlob Fox, an architect and master builder from Poznań. The new town hall was opened somewhere around 1805. The appearance of the building as it then was may be recreated on the basis of the surviving plans. The building was a three-storey structure with a flat roof, its façades following a five-axis design and featuring decorative Tuscan pilasters. Arcades ran around the ground floor level. The roof of the building was topped with turret adorned with a sculpture of Themis. In 1854, the town hall was redesigned at the initiative of Władysław Radoliński, the owner of the town at the time. The building lost its top floor and received a mansard roof with wall dormer which followed a two-axis design. The façade were partitioned by broad lesenes which framed the semicircular arcades on the ground floor and the rectangular first-floor windows. The statue of Themis was taken down from the tower. Towards the end of the 19th century and in the early 20th century, some of the rooms in the town hall were converted for use as classrooms, with other rooms being rented out. In 1907 - the year when the town of Jarocin celebrated the 650th anniversary of its foundation - the town hall was acquired by the municipality. The building was redesigned once again. The arcades, which had been partially bricked up, were restored to their former appearance. The first floor interior layout was changed, while the façades were redesigned in the Baroque style - the walls were now partitioned by narrow pilasters running through both levels of the building, the ground floor arcades received a rusticated finish, while the shape of the windows and the outline of wall dormers were modified. In the 1980s, comprehensive renovation works were carried out, with the building being adapted as a museum and library.

Description

The existing Baroque Revival town hall retains a substantial amount of features and forms of the original building erected back in years 1799-1984, redesigned in 1854 and 1907. The town hall stands in the centre of the town, in the middle of the market square. Its front façade faces the south-west. The building was designed on a square floor plan and features a small, enclosed inner yard. Arcades with stout piers run around the ground floor section of the building. The town hall features a basement underneath the entire structure; it is a two-storey structure with an additional attic. The building is covered with a tall mansard roof. The silhouette of the roof is enlivened by wall dormers positioned on the central axis of each façade and covered with gable roofs. A square addition is visible at the top of the roof.

The town hall is a brick building. Its walls are covered with a plaster. The roof is partially covered with ceramic roof tiles and partially with sheet metal. The interiors originally featured wooden ceilings, although these have been replaced by reinforced concrete ceilings in the course of the most recent renovation works. All of the façades are identical in design. They follow a five-axis design and are covered with plaster painted in various hues of beige, with the pilasters and profiled crowning cornice being painted white. The bottom sections of the pillars of the ground-floor arcades are clad with red brick. The arcades consist of a series of basked-handle arches framed by faux quoins. The entrances, topped with segmental arches, as well as the display windows which feature either semicircular or basket-handle arches are visible beneath the arcades. At the first floor level, the rectangular windows are framed by window surrounds and adorned by decorative panels positioned beneath the window sills. Wall dormers topped with stepped, convexo-concave fractables are positioned on the axes of all façades. A window topped with a semicircular arch is positioned in each wall dormer, with a clock being embedded in the wall above the window in the front facade. The corners of the building are adorned with representations of the town’s coat of arms.

The site is open to visitors. Information on the Jarocin Museum can be found on www.muzeumjarocin.pl; information on the Town Hall branch of the Jarocin municipal and community library can be found at www.bibliotekajarocin.pl.

compiled by Krzysztof Jodłowski, Regional Branch of the National Heritage Board of Poland in Poznan, 15-09-2015.

Bibliography

  • Dzieje Jarocina, red. Cz. Łuczak, Poznań 1998, passim.
  • Jarocin, woj. poznańskie : studium historyczno-urbanistyczne, oprac. E. Linette, Poznań 1966.
  • Jodłowski K., Ratusz w Jarocinie, „Zapiski jarocińskie, 1(2), 2006, s. 7-18.
  • Katalog Zabytków Sztuki w Polsce, t. V, z. 59: powiat jarociński, Warszawa 1959, s. 5-7.
  • Wielkopolskie ratusze, koncepcja, teksty i wybór fotografii P. Maluśkiewicz, Poznań 2005, s. 48-49.

Category: town hall

Architecture: Classicism

Building material:  brick

Protection: Register of monuments, Monuments records

Inspire id: PL.1.9.ZIPOZ.NID_N_30_BK.162443, PL.1.9.ZIPOZ.NID_E_30_BK.59368