The designer of this building, which is considered one of the most interesting architectural structures created in Poland in the 1930s, was Warsaw architect Jerzy Wierzbicki.

History

The building was erected in the years 1935-1936 for the National Pomeranian Office and the Municipal Savings Bank based on the design by Warsaw architect Jerzy Wierzbicki, with the cooperation of architect Stefan Gałęzowski. The plot designated for the construction was situated on the premises of a filled city moat. Following completion of the construction work, the Municipal Savings Bank occupied only some of the rooms. The remaining rooms were leased to the National Office and the administration of the Pomeranian Power Plant “Gródek”.

In 1945, ownership of the building was transferred to the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń – the seat of Collegium Minus. For many years, it housed the Faculty of Law, and currently it houses the Faculty of Humanities.

Description

The building is situated west of the Toruń old town complex at Fosa Staromiejska Street.

It was erected in the modernist style on an elongated rectangular floor plan with three avant-corps: a central one and two side ones (in the east and west façades); it follows a one-and-a-half-bay layout with a hallway along the east façade and office rooms from the west.  

It is symmetrical in shape, surrounded with a row of lesenes, and features three storeys with tall basements and an attic, covered by a flat butterfly roof.  

The load-bearing structure is made of reinforced concrete and comprises pillars which are placed every 3 metres along the perimeter of the building and support reinforced concrete beams. It is situated on a reinforced concrete slab which is further reinforced with the ribs forming the truss.  The external walls are filled with bricks.

The façades of the building display the structural features to which they owe their vertical character. The numerous vertical divisions are marked by the projecting structural posts and the lesenes – undercut to emphasise their ornamental nature – which are arranged rhythmically between them, as well as by the rectangular windows between the lesenes. The main entrance to the building is located in the central avant-corps – from the eastern side.

The inside boasts an impressive functional design of the central avant-corps with the large hall with a mezzanine and the main stairwell with semi-spiral stairs with a stone balustrade.

In the hall, corridor and main stairwell area, the original décor has been preserved in the form of terrazzo stairwell dados, black terrazzo windowsills, terrazzo corridor floors and marble handrails held up by the balustrade of the main staircase. In the basement of the central avant-corps, two safes with armoured doors have been preserved.

The monument is open to visitors.

Prepared by Marzenna Stocka, National Heritage Board of Poland, Regional Branch in Toruń, 12 December 2017

Bibliography

• Błażejewska A., Kluczwajd K., Pilecka E., Tylicki J., Dzieje Sztuki Torunia, Toruń 2009, p. 421
• Romaniak W., Wybrane zagadnienia urbanistyki i architektury w województwie pomorskim w latach 1920-1939, Warszawa 2005, pp. 77-78
• Toruń. Miasto i ludzie na dawnej fotografii (do 1939 roku), Marian Arszyński, Tadeusz Zakrzewski; Marian Biskup (ed.), Toruń 1995, p. 178