The most distinctive features of the house are the painted decorations on its walls as well as on the wooden beamed ceilings.

History

The tenement house was most likely built in the 15th century and subsequently redesigned somewhere around the year 1540, when it remained in the hands of Jan Lubomelski. Despite the fact that it faced Grodzka street, it was referred to as the “back building”, linked to the “front building” that stood on the lot at 8 Rynek st. It was also sometimes referred to as a “pass-through” building due to the fact that, despite the rather narrow lot on which it stood, it featured a broad gateway on the ground floor level, allowing the back sections of both plots of land to be easily reached. The building was most likely lost to the blaze during the great fire of Lublin (1575), although it was rebuilt shortly afterwards owing to the funds provided by Erazm Lubomelski. The two first-floor rooms located in the front suite have been partially preserved from that era. Over the years, the building changed hands on many occasions, with its owners including the members of the Zaborowski, Schirer, Makarowicz, Rzeszotkowski and Hussar families.

After 1670, a continuous buttress was added to the front façade of the building. The vestibule - originally taking the form of a broad gateway leading all the way across the building - may have been modified during those times through the addition of a shop which occupied a part of the passage. During the 18th century, the building was reportedly in very poor technical condition. It is most likely for that reason that it has been restored and redesigned in the Classicist style. Another series of renovation works took place during the second half of the 19th century. It was at that point that the building was extended upwards and became a three-storey structure. The list of owners in the early 20th century included Bercik Cygielman, Krygier and Abram, Fiszel and Mendel Mańczyk as well as Sura Ryfka Bez. At that time, the tenement house was mostly inhabited by Jews - merchants, entrepreneurs and craftsmen. The building housed two stores and a workshop. The tenement house has suffered damage during the German occupation and had to endure a long period of neglect during the postwar era; in the end, the building was restored and currently houses - among others - the offices of the Association of Polish Architects, the “Labirynt” Gallery and the “Akcent” quarterly.

Description

The tenement house forms part of a tight cluster of buildings which form the eastern frontage of Grodzka street.

The tenement house is a brick and limestone building, its walls covered with plaster; it was designed on a rectangular floor plan and originally featured a broad vestibule (gateway) accessible from the south; later on, the gateway was narrowed through the addition of a room which can be accessed from inside the vestibule itself. Initially, the building’s interiors followed a bipartite, two-bay layout, with a three-bay layout used for the first floor; the staircase was incorporated into the back suite of rooms. The building is a three-storey structure with a two-storey basement, covered with a gable roof. The vestibule features a double barrel vault.

Some of the rooms feature barrel vaults with lunettes, while others have beamed ceilings or simple, flat ceilings. The house has a staircase with two quarter landings on each storey.

The front façade follows a four-storey, three-axial, asymmetrical design, with the outermost axis being offset to the north and featuring a segment-headed window on the ground floor level. The storeys are partitioned by profiled cornices. The cornice above the ground floor level takes the form of a narrow skirt roof clad with roof tiles. The entrance is topped with a semicircular arch and is positioned on the southernmost axis of the tenement house. The rectangular windows feature decorative surrounds on the first-floor level, with decorative window sills below and cornices above. The roof surface is pierced by a trio of dormer windows.

Inside, the tenement house features surviving painted decorations bearing the hallmarks of the Classicist style, executed in the late 18th century, as well as painted ceilings (Late Renaissance rosette motif painted on the faux ceiling coffers as well as Regency motifs from the 1st half of the 18th century).

The tenement house is adjoined by a two-storey back building designed on a rectangular floor plan, covered by a shed roof and featuring a single-bay interior layout. The ground floor section of the back building is accessible from the courtyard, with the wooden galleries shared with the rest of the tenement house facilitating access to the upper storeys.

The tower can be admired from the outside all year round.

compiled by Anna Sikora-Terlecka, Regional Branch of the National Heritage Board of Poland in Lublin, 13-02-2015.

Bibliography

• Teodorowicz-Czerepińska Jadwiga., Dokumentacja naukowo-historyczna. Tenement house at 3 Grodzka street in Lublin, Lublin 1971, Archive of the National Heritage Board of Poland, Regional Branch in Lublin, file no. 186
• Nowak B., Lublin. Przewodnik, Lublin 2000, pp. 67-68.