It has retained its original plan, mass, composition and architectural detail.

History of the structure

The building was erected around 1905 on the former Groß-Strehlitzerstraße, which started to develop after 1845, when the Wrocław-Tarnowskie Góry railroad line was brought to Opole. The neighbouring buildings in the frontage (no. 11, 13, 15 and 17) were erected before 1902 - they are listed in the address book of Opole from that year. The tenement house at 16 Armii Krajowej Street was built around 1905. Its owners in 1909 was a man named Wojtaszek and the Trading Society. The building was inhabited by railroad workers such as an engine driver, a stoker and a switchman. In 1926 the tenement house was owned by a factory owner, Józef Lampka. His family owned the building until World War II. At that time it was inhabited mainly by railroad workers, craftsmen and small businessmen. After the end of World War II, the tenement house became the property of the State Treasury. After 1945, minor renovations were made and the apartments were newly divided. In 2003 the building was entered into the register of historic monuments of the Opolskie Voivodeship. In 2012 (after receiving a grant from the Opole Commune), a general renovation of the building was carried out - the front elevation was renewed, the roof was repaired, and the staircase was renovated.

Description of the structure

The tenement house is located in the downtown of Opole, in its south-eastern part. The four-storey building is a corner structure, located at the northeast corner of the intersection of Armii Krajowej and Katowicka Streets. It is located with its ridge to Armii Krajowej Street. It was built of solid ceramic bricks on a lime mortar. Inside there are wooden and Klein type vaults. The building was erected in eclectic style on an elongated rectangular floor plan on the east-west line. The south-western corner is truncated - in it, there is an entrance preceded by stairs to the service premises, which occupy the western part of the first floor. The building is covered by a flat roof with small mono-pitched planes on the front elevation. Above the truncated corner there is an octagonal lantern covered with a tent cupola, topped with a spire with a ball.

The entry in the register of historic monuments of the Opolskie Voivodeship protects mainly the south-front elevation of the building. It is eleven-axis, with a rhythm of 1:8:2. The outermost axes, slightly projecting, are architectural and compositional dominants. The mass of the building is additionally diversified by false avant-corps slightly protruding in front of the building, topped with gables in the roof line. The main portal is located in the 5th and 6th axis. Above it there is an interrupted triangular pediment with decoration in the window panels in the form of coat of arms cartouches with bundles of leaves on the sides and a winged female head in the middle.

Window openings in the first storey are closed with a full arch, in the second storey - rectangular in profiled surrounds with triangular pediments, in the third storey - with straight sections of the cornice, and in the fourth storey - with decorative plaques under and above the window. The level of the first storey and the second storey of the avant-corps and the corner is covered with rustication in a strip pattern; above it, architectural details are varied with facing bricks, plaster details, or gypsum casts. The western elevation is four-axis with analogous composition and architectural decoration. The rear elevation is covered with smooth plaster without divisions or architectural decoration.

Single pieces of window and door woodwork can still be seen in the interior. Noteworthy are the double doors in the main entrance portal (with semi-circular fanlights, panelled with rich woodcarving decoration), the swinging door from the vestibule, and the three-flight staircase with a broken metal structure with openwork geometric ornaments and a wooden balustrade.

Visitor access: the site is accessible, inhabited

Author: Joanna Banik, Regional Branch of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage in Opole, 22.06.2018

Bibliography

• Borkowski M., Opole przełomu wieków XIX/XX, Łódź 2015.
• Hamada A., Architektura Opola wpisana w dzieje miasta, Opole 2008.
• Katalog zabytków sztuki w Polsce, ed. T. Chrzanowski, M. Kornecki, Vol. VII (Opolskie Voivodeship), Warsaw 1968.
• Studium historyczno-urbanistyczne miasta Opola, Katalog zabytków – Opole Śródmieście, PKZ Wrocław 1990 [in:] resources of the Voivodeship Heritage Protection Office in Opole.
• Karta ewidencyjna zabytków architektury i budownictwa: dom mieszkalny (kamienica) Armii Krajowej 16 w Opolu [Record sheet of architectural and construction monuments: a residential house (tenement house) at 16 Armii Krajowej Str. in Opole], compiled by E. Molak, 2002 [in:] resources of the Voivodeship Heritage Protection Office in Opole.