Podgórze Market Square

Today’s Market Square was laid out at the foot of Lasota Hill as the central square of the town of Podgórze. Selection of the site was no coincidence as it was already the junction of important roads in the Middle Ages. These led to Wieliczka (the salt route), Kraków (crossing the Vistula close to today’s ul. Staromostowa), and Kalwaria Zebrzydowska. To give an optical impression of greater size to the relatively small plot, the market was given the shape of a trapeze narrowing towards the church.

The oldest part of Podgórze Market Square is the dense line of houses on its north western side, along Kalwaryjska and Limanowskiego streets, unfortunately bearing numerous traces of reconstruction. The building most worthy of attention is No. 13, the former “Pod Czarnym Orłem” Inn (literally “Under the Black Eagle”), which is preserved in its original, classicist form with the so-called Polish (broken-shaped) roof and an image of an eagle in the triangular gable. In the mid-19th century, as soon as the economic standing of the city improved, the new Town Hall at Rynek 1 was erected – a large, low building in historicist style with a richly decorated façade, and the elegant Assembly Hall.

The plan of the market square is dominated by the neo-Gothic Church of St Joseph, erected in its present form to the design of Jan Sas-Zubrzycki. The Market Square was a trading market full of life up until 1917, when it was transformed into a tram terminal and tram turning circle. Even though trams had already nearly disappeared before the second world war, trade has never returned here.