Details of Krakow’s Modernist townhouses

The aim of this paper is to present the key features of façade details typical for townhouses erected in Krakow in the period 1918-1939. It emphasizes the importance of the townhouse details for Krakow’s cultural heritage and the pressing need to document them. Since the funds of the Social Committee for the Renovation of Krakow’s Monuments are allocated in the first priority to overhauls of public utility buildings and registered monuments, the modernist buildings have little, if any, chances for renovation. Meanwhile, they continue to fall into disrepair, which makes the documentation efforts even more urgent. Only a few most precious buildings from the interwar period are listed in the register of monuments. The remaining ones are not awarded by appropriate legal protection. Based on the analysis of the influences of a variety of trends on the development of Krakow’s townhouse façades and their details in the period 1918-1939, three basic groups of façades were identified. The first one relied on the historic style, the second, and most numerous one, combined historic and functionalist forms, while the third one emerged under explicit influence of functionalism. Key elements of the historic stylistics include: symmetry and division of the façade into three parts (bossage on the wall base, vertically articulated main part, finial), strong emphasis on the entrance portal, conspicuous cornices and decorations. In townhouses combining historic and functional forms, the prevailing stylistic elements include simple poles, lesenes (often worked in the plaster texture), enhanced with decorations (coats of arms, friezes, etc.). The ornamental-stylistic current typical of the ‘Krakow school’ comes in several different iterations. Few townhouses were explicitly influenced by the European functionalism. Designers aimed at simplifying the detail forms and their geometrization, producing an effect that revealed more deeply the functional content of the mass. The functionalist current in Krakow differed artistically from the avant-garde European projects. Nonetheless, it shared similar rationalist objectives – usability, economy and simplicity. Façade details often served as a link between contemporaneity and previous periods; they took account of features typical of the Krakow’s historic architecture.