Residential Area in Salwator

This residential, garden-like precinct was developed along the lines of the idea of Ebenezer Howard, an English city planner from the latter half of the 19th century. It was built in 1909–1913 along Władysława Anczyca and Gontyny streets that were staked out specifically for that purpose. Their unorthodox, semicircular shape was enforced by the configuration of the rampart, a fragment or the Austrian fortifications which had been earmarked for demolition. Perfectly blended into the landscape, the area was built under the aegis of the Society for the Construction of Cheap Houses for Civil Servants, hence the name that is sometimes used for the location – osiedle Urzędnicze. Most of the buildings, whose architecture makes reference to the picturesque historicism, were designed by a Kraków architect and construction entrepreneur, Roman Bandurski (1874–1949).

Bandurski, relatively forgotten and quite possibly underappreciated, was a student of another romantic visionary, Teodor Talowski (1857-1910), and was a master of his trade, capable of melding together elements of the most diverse styles: from historicism via Art Nouveau to modernism, in his facades. The buildings that he designed perfectly pretended to be picturesque ancient households full of still undiscovered secrets and mysteries.

It must be emphasised that both the owners and residents of the buildings situated in the district were (and still are) among the eminent representatives of the world of science, art, and culture known far beyond the borders not only of the district of Zwierzyniec, but also of Kraków itself. This was, is, and most probably still will be the social structure of the area.