Restoration of the Market Square in Opole as the creation of a new vision of the city’s history

Barbara Szczepańska

doi:10.37190/arc210304

Abstract

The article aims to present the post-war restoration of the Market Square in Opole as a process of creating the city’s new history. The research subject included the tenement houses in the frontages of Opole’s Market Square, which were destroyed in 1945 and rebuilt in the 1950s. The article analyses the process of restoring Opole’s Market Square, which is presented in the context of Opole’s changed national affiliation and the ideological and identity issues, therefore, ultimately impacting the form of restored tenement houses. The archival materials analysed during the research process were: written materials, kept in the State Archive in Opole, and design projects, kept in the State Archive in Katowice. The research is complemented by subject literature, in which the topic of Old Town restoration was present, historical publications concerning Opole and local press. Our research established that Opole’s Market Square’s post-restoration image differs significantly from how it looked before World War II. The analysis of iconographical materials (pre-war postcards and photographs, as well as contemporary photographs) showed that, in the restoration process, the 19th-century tenement houses that differed from each other stylistically, became replaced with unified baroque-like buildings. The analysis of archival materials pertaining to the restoration of Opole’s Market Square proves that this process was not only meant to restore the Old Town’s spatial cohesion, reconstruct inner-city infrastructure and create new apartments, but also to present local authorities’ resourcefulness and to show that Opole has always been a Polish city, brought back to its Motherland in 1945. Stark differences between the pre- and post-war image of Opole’s Market Square provoke questions concerning identity in the context of restoration, values related to particular architectural styles and attempts to create a brand new vision of Opole’s history, in which “Polish” elements were displayed to legitimise incorporating the city into Poland and to constitute the city’s brand new identity.

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2021

3(67)

DOI: 10.37190/arc210304

Barbara Szczepańska*

Restoration of the Market Square in Opole

as the creation of a new vision of the city’s history

Introduction

In 1945, as one of the cities of the so-called “Regained

Territories”, Opole experienced an interruption to its his-

torical continuity. The new geopolitical situation in which

the former German city joined Poland was associated

also with the administrative, social, and identity issues.

Opole, like many other cities, was severely damaged dur-

ing World War II. Therefore, one of the most important

tasks facing the new Polish authorities was to rebuild the

city and repair the war damages. The restoration process

started right after the war and continued until the end of

the 1950s. One of the most crucial areas in terms of the

spatial, transportation and historical structure of Opole

was the Market Square.

The Market Square in Opole is located on the right

bank of the Odra River, when heading east from Pasieka

Island and Ostrówek – the area where the rst Opole’s

settlement was established (Fig. 1). Even though the Mar-

ket Square is aligned along a northwest-southeast axis,

customarily the frontages are named after the cardinal

directions. The market square has the shape of a slightly

irregular rectangle with an area of almost 6 hectares (ha).

The eastern and western frontages (in fact, the south-west-

ern and north-eastern frontages) are the longest – they are

approx. 97 and 100 m long, respectively, with eight tene-

ment houses in each. The shorter frontages: the north and

south (in fact, north-west and south-east) measure 60 m

each and are comprised of four tenement houses each.

The Opole Town Hall serves as the mid-marketplace

block, and its provenance dates back to medieval times.

Its present form follows on from both the aftermath of the

-century neo-renaissance alteration and the rebuild-

ing after its collapse in the 1930s. The Opole Town Hall

building survived the war in relatively intact condition.

As a result of the World War II, according to estimates,

the tenement houses of the Opole Market Square were de-

stroy ed in about 80 per cent. The restoration of this area

aimed to preserve the compositional coherence of the

Old Town area, recreate the downtown infrastructure and

provide a number of new apartments. In the context of

Opole as one of the cities with changed national alia-

tion in 1945, the restoration of the Market Square also had

a signi cance in terms of ideology, identity and national

propaganda. It was supposed to testify not only to the re-

sourcefulness of the local authorities but also to the fact

that Opole was an eternally Polish city, which returned to

Motherland in 1945.

The appearance of the Market Square after its resto-

ration diers signicantly from how it presented itself

before World War II. Unied baroquized buildings large-

ly replaced the 19

-century tenement houses of varied

styles. The apparent dierences between the pre- and post-

war appearance of the Opole Market Square make one

pose questions about the identity objectives of the restora-

tion process, values associated with specic architectural

styles, and attempts to create an entirely new vision of the

history of Opole, in which “Polish” elements are exposed

in order to legitimise the city’s inclusion within the bor-

ders of Poland and to constitute a completely new, post-

war identity of the city.

The history of the post-war restoration of the Opole

Market Square has been the subject matter of historical

and non-academic publications. In this regard, one can

refer to the monograph book about Opole, published in

1975 [2], or the publication entitled Opole. Dzieje i trady-

cja [Opole. History and Tradition], published in 2011 [3].

Those issues related to the city’s post-war restoration,

* ORCID: 0000-0003-4527-2045. Institute of Art History, Univer-

sity of Wrocław, e-mail: barbara.szczepanska2@uwr.edu.pl

36 Barbara Szczepańska

Opole Market Square from the end of World War II until

its rebuilding in the early 1950s. Following the aforemen-

tioned part, the restoration process is presented, and the

pre- and post-war appearance of the Opole Market Square

is compared (based on archival and contemporary photo-

graphs). Finally, in the last part of the article, some light

is shed on the restoration process, which is interpreted as

an attempt to use architecture to create an entirely new

perception of the history of the city.

The Market Square in Opole

from the end of the World War II

until the beginning of restoration

As a result of the post-war division of Europe, Opole

was incorporated into Poland within the so-called “Re-

covered Territories”. From 1945 to 1950, it constituted the

district (powiat) capital as a part of Śląsko-Dąbrowskie

Voivodeship with the capital in Katowice. This situation

thus accounted for the degradation of the pre-war status of

Opole, which in the interwar period played a double role

as the capital of the Opole administrative district (Regi-

erung) and the Upper Silesian Province. Opole’s rank as

a district city inuenced the plans and investments made

during the rst ve post-war years, including decisions on

rebuilding the city and repairing the war damage.

The Opole Market Square was one of the most dam-

aged areas in the city. The Chronicle of Opole presented

this area as [...] one terrible rubble with single buildings

sticking out of it [7, pp. 9–11]

. Only 6 out of the 32 tene -

ment houses survived the war – numbers 1, 2, 3, and 10 in

The wartime destruction of the Opole Market Square is presented,

inter alia, in the publication entitled Opole 1945 i teraz [Opole in 1945

and now] [8], the photographic material of which is available on the Foto-

polska.eu website: https://fotopolska.eu/384,zrodlo.html?galeria_zdjec=

&zrodlo=384&s=0

including the Market Square, were also encompassed in

many illustrated books devoted to the city. The aspects

of the subject matter discussed in this article were also

presented in publications dealing with the post-war resto-

ration of the cities in Poland. In this context, the publica-

tions of Monika E. Adamska [4], Bohdan Rymaszewski

[5] or Wacław Ostrowski [6] can be mentioned.

However, none of the publications mentioned above

present the comprehensive and exhaustive history of the

restoration of the Opole Market Square. The process was

not considered either in the context of the correlation be-

tween the restoration and political, ideological, or iden-

tity matters. The only exception is Rymaszewski’s pub-

lication, in which the author outlines the context of the

de-prussization of architecture concerning the reconstruc-

tion of old town areas in the Polish lands, including Opole

among other cities in which this process took on a sim-

ilar character [5, p. 105]. However, the interdependence

between restoration and architectural styles with politics,

ideology, and identity is omitted in the other publications.

This article aims to ll this research gap by tracing

the history of the restoration of the Opole Market Square

and proposing a new interpretation of this process as an

attempt to create a new vision of the city’s history and

establish its post-war identity. Due to the fact that nowa-

days, there are no rudimentary studies fully describing the

rebuilding of the Market Square in Opole, the article can

be considered a presentation of basic research on the post-

war restoration of this area. The article is based primarily

on the analysis of archival materials stored in the State

Archives in Opole and the State Archives in Katowice and

the local press. The source materials are complemented by

the academic and non-academic literature, both on the sub-

ject (concerning the history of Opole) and cross-section-

al information (covering the subjects related to the post-

war restoration of Polish cities). The article is divided into

four main parts. The rst one presents the history of the

Fig. 1. A fragment of the map of

the city of Opole from the

Przewodnik po mieście Opolu,

issued in 1948. The area of the

Market Square is marked in red

(source: [1])

Il. 1. Fragment planu Opola

z Przewodnika po mieście Opolu

z 1948 r. Obszar Rynku

zaznaczono kolorem czerwonym

(źródło: [1])

Restoration of the Market Square in Opole 37

the western frontage and 24 and 25 in the southern front-

age. Since its early construction, the historical centre

has

played essential functions in the structure of Opole, both

representative, residential, and trade. Therefore, its de-

struction was severe for the city on many levels, not only

in the context of potential residential apartments but also in

relation to the structural and functional cohesion of the city

[5, p. 94]. Due to the city authorities’ limited nancial and

administrative capacity during the rst ve post-war years,

the commencement of rebuilding the city was a demand-

ing undertaking. The city’s budget allowed only makeshift

renovations of damaged buildings located in the historical

centre; inclusive of securing the façades and vaults, roof-

ing, or adapting the ground oors for housing purposes [9,

p. 64]. At the same time, due to nancial diculties, the

renovations were carried out on buildings that were dam-

aged to a relatively small extent, while signicantly dam-

aged buildings were not rebuilt in the rst post-war years

[10, p. 1]. The short-term actions were also carried out on

the interiors of the blocks near the market square – tempo-

rary extensions were removed from them to lower the hous-

ing’s density and ensure adequate sunlight and ventilation

of the apartments [11, pp. 33, 34]. It is worth mentioning

that during that dicult period, one tenement house was

also rebuilt in the Market Square; it was tenement house

no. 16, located at the corner of the eastern frontage and Os-

mańczyka Street (rebuilt at the turn of 1948 and 1949) [12,

p. 33]. As part of short-term undertakings, the demolition

of tenement houses, for which there was no chance for re-

building and whose deteriorating technical condition posed

a threat to both residents and passers-by, was also carried

out. For these reasons, the houses of the northern frontage

were demolished: no. 15 (pulled down in August 1945) [9,

p. 169] and no. 11 (pulled down in 1946) [9, p. 288].

Despite numerous diculties and issues related to the

restoration, its schedule, and nancial and logistical re-

sources of the city were crucial for the authorities and, un-

doubtedly, between 1945–1950, the city’s decision-makers

were engaged in the process. At the end of the 1940s, the

Opole Reconstruction Committee made arrangements re-

garding the dates of the reconstruction of residential hous-

es based on the degree of their destruction: the residential

houses destroyed in 75–80% (i.e., houses in the Market

Square) had to be secured in 1949, and rebuilt in 1950–

1958 [11, p. 39]. In the case of the Opole Market Square,

the Opole Reconstruction Committee estimates turned out

to be fairly accurate.

Restoration of the Opole Market Square

(1951–1955)

The dynamics of the restoration process changed in 1950.

At that time, a new Opole Voivodeship was created due to

the merging of lands previously belonging to the Wrocław

and Śląsko-Dąbrowskie Voivodeships. Consequently, Opo

le was promoted to the rank of the voivodeship capi tal

The new administrative position oered the city a chance

See: [13].

for autonomy and decision-making and gave rise to hopes

of receiving funds with which the city authorities could

solve the problems it had been struggling with since the

end of World War II. The most crucial of them ranged

from completing the city’s reconstruction process to

nding a partial solution to the housing problem. These

closely dependent issues also related to the Opole Market

Square, which, as was already mentioned, could not un-

dergo reconstruction in 1945–1950. It is worth mention-

ing that the issue of rebuilding the Old Town together with

the Market Square was also one of the propositions of the

election programme for the National Front Committee,

which stressed that [...] by the end of 1957 all buildings

within the Old Town would be rebuilt [14, p. 1].

The project of rebuilding the Market Square in Opole

was made in the Miastoprojekt-Południe by Stanisław

Kra marczyk, Jan Olpiński, Czesław Thullie and Marian

Skał kow ski

. Jerzy Mączyński cooperated with the chief

designers and prepared, for example, execution designs

for tenement houses at 28 and 29 Rynek. Architectural de-

signs were assessed by the Department of Conservation

and Protection of Immovable Monuments at the Ministry

of Culture. The restoration process on-site was supervised

by the main investor – the Directorate for the Construction

of Labour’s Housing Estates (Dyrekcja Budowy Osiedli

Robotniczych – DBOR) [15, p. 3]. The following bodies

were also involved in the rebuilding of the Opole Market

Square: Opole conservation authorities, Culture Depart-

ment of the Bureau of the Voivodeship National Council

in Katowice [16, p. 16] and the group of historians “under

the aegis of the Ministry of Culture”, who were to conduct

research in Opole, based on which the technical documen-

tation for the restoration of the Market Square was to be

prepared [17, p. 4].

In the process of preparation of the restoration projects

of the Opole Market Square, the architects could use data

comprising the history of the architecture of the Market

Square from several sources. Hence, it was possible to

draw information from the preserved buildings and archi-

tectural elements because some of the tenement houses,

despite damages, had their gable walls remaining, often

with façade details. During the design work, the architects

worked closely with art historians, studying historical en-

gravings and photographs and examining the historic sub-

stance of the tenement houses [15, p. 3]. Moreover, even

before 1950, the Market Square was subjected to an inven-

tory to determine the artistic and historical values of indi-

vidual tenement houses and assess which of them should

be reconstructed [18, pp. 1–10]. The detailed information

in the inventory leads to the conclusion that pre-war doc-

uments or iconographic materials were used during its

preparation. The documentation includes, among other

things, dates of alterations or dates of the last conservation

of selected tenement houses, precisely dened dating of

some of their parts, or information about the end-use of the

In the literature to date, Skałkowski was misleadingly introduced

either as the sole author of the project of rebuilding the Opole Market

Square or as the chief designer. See: [4, pp. 55, 56].

38 Barbara Szczepańska

tenement houses. The decorative elements of the façades

had also been elaborated on in the inventory. One may nd

information about the gables with “beautiful” (26 Rynek)

or “delicate” (31 Rynek) proportions, richly shaped win-

dow trims, reliefs, and cartouches with inscriptions.

The restoration projects of the Opole Market Square

carried out by Miastoprojekt-Południe can be divided into

several categories. The rst of them is the collective hous-

ing design projects presenting groups of neighbouring

tenement houses (nos. 13–15 in the northern frontage [19]

and nos. 17–23 in the eastern one [20]) or even the en-

tire frontages – as was the case with the southern frontage

(nos. 26–32) [21]. In addition to these collective designs,

individual projects for tenement houses acknowledged as

“historic buildings” – namely those of the most signicant

historical and artistic value [22] – were also prepared. De-

signs of details of individual tenement houses were also

created, showing gables, portals, details of ttings, and

ornaments, which were to be placed on the façades of ten-

ement houses [23].

“The restoration of the Market Square has nally be-

gun” – with these words from the city’s chronicle dated

1951, the beginning of the restoration process of the Opole

Market Square was announced. At that time, in the Mias-

toprojekt-Południe studio, designs of the tenement houses

on the southern (nos. 28–32) and northern (nos. 13–15)

frontage [24, p. 58] were made. First, the rebuilding of the

southern and eastern frontages began, which took place in

1952 [25, p. 15]. The southern frontage was the rst to be

completed in a building shell state (1953) [25, p. 39]. The

next step was to rebuild the northern frontage [17, p. 4]. In

1954, the northern frontage (nos. 11–15) and the eastern

one (nos. 17–23) were completed [25, p. 64]. During the

restoration in 1954, the historic buildings in the Old Town

were also re-inventoried. This group includes, among other

things, tenement houses 12 and 13 Rynek (northern front-

age), 30 and 31 Rynek (southern frontage), and tenement

house no. 25 (eastern frontage, at the corner of the Market

Square and St. Wojciech Street) [25, pp. 52, 53]. The west-

ern frontage was the last one to be completed. In 1953, the

press reported that […] the issue of rebuilding the fourth

part of the Market Square had not yet been solved [15,

p. 3]. Although it can be learned that the projects concern-

ing this part were largely developed at that time, the nal

shape of the frontage in terms of functionality (location of

institutions such as Dom Chłopa [The Peasants’ Home] or

Dom Literata [The Writer’s Home] was, at that time, the

subject of discussion [15, p. 3]. Ultimately, the rebuilding

of the western frontage was completed in 1955 and was

reported in the press by the publishing of a photograph of

the frontage with the caption: […] the western part, put

into service a few days ago [14, p. 1]. Thus, the restora-

tion of the Market Square according to the designs made in

Miastoprojekt-Południe was completed at the end of 1955

[26, p. 172]. The “project of the reconstruction of buildings

forming the borders of the Market Square in Opole” by

Stanisław Kramarczyk, Jan Olpiński, Czesław Thullie, and

Marian Skałkowski was granted the 3

-degree award in the

department of monument conservation, given by the Town

Planning and Architecture Committee for 1956 [27, p. 170].

The restoration of the Market Square was to increase

the aesthetic value of the Old Town by replacing the de-

stroyed buildings with entirely new ones and lling gaps

in the blocks. The rebuilt tenement houses near the Market

Square were also to help solve the housing problem that

Opole was facing at that time. The tenement houses were

[…] to preserve the historic character of the 17

- and

-century façades [24, p. 58], while the interiors were

to consist of the most modern utilities, providing access to

sewage, gas or electricity installations [17, p. 4]. The press

mentioned their adequate insolation, and the comfort and

convenience they were supposed to provide to new res-

idents. Furthermore, the new residents of the tenement

houses near the Market Square were decided in advance.

Following the postulate of the return of the people to the

city centres, they were to be “labour people” – workers

employed at industrial plants in Opole [15, p. 3]. The mo-

dernity of the rebuilt tenement houses gave access to the

sewerage system, electricity and completely new spatial

solutions that also introduced a dissonance between the

“historic” exterior and the modern interior. While in the

ground oor service facilities of the tenement houses el-

ements such as historic vaults were preserved, the spatial

distribution of the residential part could bring to mind new

prefabricated blocks with unied layouts of rooms. This

procedure aimed to full the housing capacity standards

to accommodate as many people as possible in new apart-

ments [28, pp. 146–149].

The Market Square before and after restoration

– a comparative study

Despite the declared diligence and meticulousness

that was to be characteristic of the process of designing

the restoration of the Opole Market Square, the forms of

individual tenement houses dier signicantly in appear-

ance from how they looked before the war. The heteroge-

neity and diversity of the pre-war market square housing

structure, preserved mainly in a historicised form, were

replaced by the homogeneity of the neo-baroque array.

A comparison of the contemporary appearance of the

market square frontages with their pre-war state reveals

how far the inventiveness of architects and decision-mak-

ers went. Namely, the most signicant metamorphosis

can be observed in the case of the eastern and northern

frontages. Before the war, both were mainly structured

from classicist or historicised tenement houses. The build-

ings diered in terms of the stylistic solutions used (in

the northern frontage, attention is drawn to richly orna-

mented tenement houses nos. 11 and 14, in the eastern

frontage tenement house no. 19 can be distinguished).

Furthermore, they diered in terms of height (one can no-

tice three to ve storeys in the eastern frontage, four to

ve storeys in the northern frontage) and in terms of their

location within the Market Square (some tenement hous-

es had roof slopes facing the front of the Market Square,

while the front-facing gables formed the vast majority of

the buildings’ frontages) (Figs. 2, 3).

The project for the tenement houses on the eastern

frontage (nos. 17–23) was made by Miastoprojekt-Połud-

Restoration of the Market Square in Opole 39

this relates to the tenement house no. 23 in the eastern

frontage and 13 in the northern frontage (Figs. 4, 5).

In the case of the northern frontage, tenement house

no. 11 is a compelling example. Located at the corner of

the Market Square and Koraszewskiego Street, the place

was formerly the hotel “Pod Czarnym Orłem” [“Under

the Black Eagle”] before the war. This tenement house

had perhaps the most decorative form of all the tenement

houses on the Market Square; it stands out thanks to its

extended gable roof and a corner oriel window on a polyg-

onal plan, crowned by a soaring bell-shaped tented roof. It

can be stated that in its case, after the war, the retroversion

was applied. The baroque forms, by which this tenement

house had been characterised before its neo style restora-

tion at the beginning of the 20

century, were faithfully

recreated [30, p. 4].

nie at the end of 1952 [20], and the northern frontage

(nos. 13–15) in 1951 [19]. The project did not include ad-

jacent tenement houses – in the case of the eastern front-

age nos. 16, 24 and 25, and in the case of the northern

frontage units nos. 11 and 12. The façades of the tene-

ment houses of both frontages lost their historicising char-

acter in the rebuilding process and were subject to both

baroquization and unication. The new, baroque façades

of tenement houses diered in the arrangement of details,

such as windows, some portals, and nally, volute gables.

However, all these elements were simplied, which gives

the impression that these details were more or less acci-

dentally “glued” to individual façades. At the same time,

it is worth noting that these façades that had undergone the

process of baroque overhaul before the war were the ones

that, at the same time, were most faithfully reconstructed;

Fig. 2. Eastern frontage of

th Market Square in Opole

before 1945.

From the right: fragment of

tenement house no. 24,

tenement house nos. 23, 22, 21,

20, 19, 17 and 16 (source: [29])

Il. 2. Pierzeja wschodnia Rynku

w Opolu przed 1945 r.

Od prawej: fragment kamienicy

nr 24, kamienica nr 23, 22, 21,

20, 19, 17 i 16 (źródło: [29])

Fig. 3. Northern frontage of

the Market Square in Opole

before 1945.

From the left: tenement houses

nos. 11–14 and a fragment of

tenement house no. 15

(source: collection of

the Museum of Opole Silesia)

Il. 3. Pierzeja północna Rynku

w Opolu przed 1945 r.

Od lewej: kamienice nr 11–14

i fragment kamienicy nr 15

(źródło: zbiory Muzeum

Śląska Opolskiego)

40 Barbara Szczepańska

The façades of the tenement houses on the southern

and western frontages during the restoration proceedings

were carried in a similar manner and can be referred to as

a replacement of diversity with unication and historicism

with the baroque style (Figs. 6, 7).

The façades of the rebuilt tenement houses diered

mainly in terms of the degree of development and the use

of details. The exception to this process of unication and

the baroque style application are three tenement houses

on the western frontage nos. 1, 2 and 3, which were not

damaged during the war and retained their pre-war forms

(Fig. 8). Moreover, from the southern and western front-

ages, the tenement houses that were most faithfully re-

constructed and matched their pre-war appearance, were

also in the baroque style; in the southern frontage, these

are the tenement houses nos. 29, 30, 31 and 32, and in

the western frontage, tenement houses nos. 4, 5, 6 and 7.

The only exception is the baroque tenement house no. 27

in the southern frontage – its façade was rearranged and

extended with a cylindrical oriel window and arcades on

the side of Krakowska Street (Fig. 9).

The importance of the restoration the Opole

Market Square in the context of creating a new

vision of the city’s history

Due to the process of restoration, the Opole Market

Square was to regain its “old, historical appearance” [17,

p. 4]. The often-cited reference point of “historicity” of

the architecture of the rebuilt Market Square forces us to

Fig. 4. The eastern frontage of the Market Square in Opole

after he restoration. From the left: tenement houses nos. 16–21

and a fragment of tenement house no. 22

(photo by B. Szczepańska, 2021)

Il. 4. Pierzeja wschodnia Rynku w Opolu po odbudowie.

Od lewej: kamienice nr 16–21 i fragment kamienicy nr 22

(fot. B. Szczepańska, 2021)

Fig. 5. The northern frontage of the Market Square in Opole

after the restoration.

From the left: tenement houses nos. 11a and 12–15

(photo by B. Szczepańska, 2021)

Il. 5. Pierzeja północna Rynku w Opolu po odbudowie.

Od lewej: kamienice nr 11a oraz 12–15

(fot. B. Szczepańska, 2021)

Fig. 6. The market square

in Opole before 1945.

The western frontage and

a fragment of the northern frontage

with the “Under the Black

Eagle” tenement house.

From the left: fragment of

tenement house no. 3,

tenement house nos. 4–10

(source: [31])

Il. 6. Rynek w Opolu przed 1945 r.

Pierzeja zachodnia i fragment

pierzei północnej z kamienicą

„Pod Czarnym Orłem”.

Od lewej: fragment kamienicy nr 3,

kamienice nr 4–10

(źródło: [31])

Restoration of the Market Square in Opole 41

pose questions about what history this architecture was

supposed to represent and how, in principle, one denes

history in the context of the city that changed its national

aliation a few years earlier. The rebuilding process of

the Opole Market Square discloses how history and ref-

erences to it were used as political tools, manipulated in

order to legitimise the geopolitical situation of that time

and achieve political objectives. Furthermore, it was not

the actual historical condition that was decided to be pre-

served, but a new vision of the city’s history was created

when rebuilding the Market Square.

A wealth of information on the subject of the identity

and ideological signicance of the restoration of the Mar-

ket Square can be traced in the Opole press. One of the

articles on the restoration shows that archivists and his-

torians were supposed to recreate, on the basis of icono-

graphic materials, […] the historic beauty of the Polish

and “Opole’s” Renaissance and Baroque architecture

[32, p. 6]. In addition to recreating and restoring indi-

vidual forms, the vital task was to reject other – in this

case […] foreign Prussian inuences grounded in Berlin’s

Pseudoclassicism from Schinkel’s and Langhans’ schools

of architecture; the same ones which, when Opole had

been passed into the hands of Prussia, […] started to ob-

scure the native Polish baroque distinctive of a particu-

lar hue found in Opole [32, p. 6]. However, the negative

attitude towards the 19

and 20

-century alterations of

cities under Prussian and German rule in the case of Opole

Fig. 7. The southern frontage of

the Market Square in Opole

before 1945.

From the left: tenement houses

nos. 27–31 and 32

(source: collection of

the Opole Silesia Museum)

Il. 7. Pierzeja południowa Rynku

w Opolu przed 1945 r.

Od lewej: kamienice nr 27–31 i 32

(źródło: zbiory Muzeum

Śląska Opolskiego)

Fig. 8. The western frontage of the Market Square in Opole

after the restoration.

From the left: houses nos. 1–8 and a fragment of tenement house no. 9

(photo by B. Szczepańska, 2021)

Il. 8. Pierzeja zachodnia Rynku w Opolu po odbudowie.

Od lewej: kamienice nr 1–8 i fragment kamienicy nr 9

(fot. B. Szczepańska, 2021)

Fig. 9. The southern frontage of the Market Square in Opole

after the restoration.

From the left: tenement house nos. 27–31 and 32

(photo by B. Szczepańska, 2021)

Il. 9. Pierzeja południowa Rynku w Opolu po odbudowie.

Od lewej: kamienice nr 27–31 i 32

(fot. B. Szczepańska, 2021)

42 Barbara Szczepańska

was not a unique phenomenon. Similar postulates of re-

moving “germanizing” elements of architecture were also

spread during the reconstruction of the Old Town areas in

Poznań, Olsztyn and Gdańsk [5, p. 105].

Concerning the southern frontage of the Market Square,

one can nd information that its tenement houses repre-

sented “the Opole’s past in a beautiful form”. At the same

time, the cylindrical corner oriel windows of the Market

Square’s tenement houses were claimed as characteristic

of Opole’s architecture and resembling […] the distant

history of Opole, when the population was building de-

fensive watchtowers at the corners of the Market Square

to protect it from enemy attacks [33, p. 1]. In one of the

publications written shortly after the rebuilding was com-

pleted, it was written that the market tenement houses

were recreated […] with full care for the ornamentation

appropriate to their style, which consisted of […] Silesian

folk motifs and scenes from the everyday lives of Opole’s

townspeople and craftsmen [34, pp. 18–20].

This type of narrative created a reinterpretation of his-

tory. The alleged “Polishness” of baroque forms and styles

was, in the context of the Opole’s Market Square, an ut-

terly articial feature created for the needs of the propa-

ganda narrative about the city’s return to the Motherland

– Poland. It is widely acknowledged that Opole’s Market

Square has undergone several renovations in its history.

At the turn of the 16

and 17

centuries, the market was

rebuilt in the Renaissance style, the eect of which, how-

ever, was destroyed by res in 1615, 1618, 1647 and 1682.

A successive rebuilding after another re that took place

in 1739, imposed the baroque style on the tenement houses

in the Market Square [2, p. 163]. Furthermore, simulta-

neously Opole changed its national aliation. Until 1742,

the city was ruled by the Habsburgs, while after the Sile-

sian Wars, it came under Prussian rule. Therefore, the ba -

roque rebuilding of the Market Square is historically asso-

ciated with the times when Opole did not belong to Po land.

Nevertheless, after the war, the history of the ar chi tectural

transformations of the Market Square was rewritten in or-

der for the baroque architecture to serve as proof of the

historical “Polishness” of the city.

After the war, threads from the city’s history were eager-

ly exposed, indicating its ties with Poland. The highlight-

ed style and character of the cylindrical oriel windows of

Opole’s tenement houses were associated with the reign

of the bishop Jan Kropidło. Interconnections between the

buildings of the Opole Market Square and Jan Kazi mierz

Waza were also displayed; namely, the Royal Tene ment

House (1 Rynek) would serve as the king’s oce, and the

tenement house at the corner of St. Wojciech and Krakows-

ka Street would house a pharmacy, the creation of which

was also to be decreed by Jan Kazimierz [35, p. 1].

At that particular time, the choice for the baroque style

in the process of rebuilding Opole’s Market Square was

inuenced by the negative attitude towards historicis-

ing architecture. In the mid-20

century, the narrative

of 19

-century architecture in Polish art history was fre-

quently described as secondary and epigonic. As Andrzej

Olszewski wrote in relation to historicism, the capitalist

development of cities and the enrichment of society, com-

bined with the ignorance of architects and constructors,

turned architecture into mindless archaeology, suppress-

ing “daredevils-innovators” and promoting imitation [36,

pp. 277–280]. In light of these views, 19

-century archi-

tecture, represented by historicising bourgeois tenements,

served as the manifestation of capitalism – the system that

was perceived in a conclusively negative way during the

times of socialism.

In the context of the criticism of capitalism and its ar-

chitecture, it is also essential to bear in mind that Opole

underwent a formal and social change within the Market

Square. Local authorities saw workers and employees of

local industrial plants as new residents of the historical

downtown. Both the forms of tenement houses of the Mar-

ket Square and their new inhabitants created an entirely

new Market Square; one that functions in juxtaposition to

the old bourgeois, capitalist and germanised city. In this

new Polish town, […] the ruins of Art Nouveau tenement

houses […] gave way to the historic façades of tenement

houses inhabited by working people [34, pp. 18–20].

Conclusions

Several fundamental tendencies concerning the phe-

nomenon of post-war reconstruction process of the Old

Town areas in Poland can be distinguished. With regard

to the cities of Lower Silesia, Mirosław Przyłęcki distin-

guished three such characteristics: the rst one included

two options; namely, the reconstruction of the destroyed

buildings and architecture and the return to their pre-exist-

ing state before their destruction, or the reconstruction of

earlier historical forms; the second one involved the con-

struction of entirely new buildings with the simultaneous

rejection of thoroughly modern forms and the preservation

of selected historical elements, such as the scale and line

of blocks or the forms of roofs; the third one included the

construction of new building complexes with no regard to

their particular historical condition and forms from before

the destruction [4, p. 53]. These tendencies can be broad-

ly extended to the entire territory of Poland because the

architectural tendencies mentioned by Przyłęcki can also

be found outside Lower Silesia. Restoration of the Market

Square in Opole in this context falls into the rst category

distinguished by Przyłęcki, and includes reconstruction or

rebuilding that aims at preserving the condition and style

of the blocks before the destruction or recreating the fur-

thest condition acknowledged as historic. Hence, in the

context of Opole, the latter forms considered to be histor-

ic were those of the baroque style. The rebuilding of the

Old Town areas in baroque forms was not limited only to

Opole – it was similarly conveyed in Olsztyn [5, p. 114]

and Lublin [5, p. 110].

After the restoration, the Market Square in Opole be-

came a place whose architecture was to present a his-

torical narrative in line with the ideology and politics of

the time. By blurring the actual history of architectural

transformations in this area, the complex of the rebuilt

Market Square was set to form the creation of the history

of Opole that would testify, through architecture, to the

eternal Polishness of the city. In this process, historicis-

Restoration of the Market Square in Opole 43

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ing tenement houses from the 19

and 20

centuries were

replaced with baroque tenement houses, which were to

rep

resent the Polish character of the city in the then bind-

ing narrative. The architecture of the rebuilt Market Square

was to create an entirely new vision of the city’s history,

in the light of which the area became the heritage of the

“ Polish” Baroque, unchanged by the German rebuildings

of the 19

or 20

century. In fact, this falsied the history

of Opole’s architecture, as the baroque rebuilding of the

Market Square took place at the beginning of Prussian rule.

The attempt to establish the post-war new vision of

the history of Opole based on the example of the city’s

Market Square can be considered successful. Nowadays,

the majority of the inhabitants do not realise how much

the pre-and post-war Market Square dier and what in-

uenced this state of aairs. However, the attentiveness

to this process and its ideological and identity motives is

critical to understand as it constitutes part of a broader

process of appropriating architecture for political and ide-

ological purposes, which took place in the so-called “Re-

gained Territories”.

Translated by

Emilia Staniek

44 Barbara Szczepańska

Abstract

Restoration of the Market Square in Opole as the creation of a new vision of the city’s history

The article aims to present the post-war restoration of the Market Square in Opole as a process of creating the city’s new history. The research

subject included the tenement houses in the frontages of Opole’s Market Square, which were destroyed in 1945 and rebuilt in the 1950s. The article

analyses the process of restoring Opole’s Market Square, which is presented in the context of Opole’s changed national aliation and the ideological

and identity issues, therefore, ultimately impacting the form of restored tenement houses. The archival materials analysed during the research process

were: written materials, kept in the State Archive in Opole, and design projects, kept in the State Archive in Katowice. The research is complemented

by subject literature, in which the topic of Old Town restoration was present, historical publications concerning Opole and local press.

Our research established that Opole’s Market Square’s post-restoration image diers signicantly from how it looked before World War II. The

analysis of iconographical materials (pre-war postcards and photographs, as well as contemporary photographs) showed that, in the restoration

process, the 19

-century tenement houses that diered from each other stylistically, became replaced with unied baroque-like buildings. The

analysis of archival materials pertaining to the restoration of Opole’s Market Square proves that this process was not only meant to restore the Old

Town’s spatial cohesion, reconstruct inner-city infrastructure and create new apartments, but also to present local authorities’ resourcefulness and

to show that Opole has always been a Polish city, brought back to its Motherland in 1945. Stark dierences between the pre- and post-war image

of Opole’s Market Square provoke questions concerning identity in the context of restoration, values related to particular architectural styles and

attempts to create a brand new vision of Opole’s history, in which “Polish” elements were displayed to legitimise incorporating the city into Poland

and to constitute the city’s brand new identity.

Key words: architecture, urban planning, Recovered Territories, Opole, restoration

Streszczenie

Odbudowa Rynku w Opolu jako kreacja nowej wizji historii miasta

Celem artykułu było zaprezentowanie powojennej odbudowy Rynku w Opolu jako kreacji nowej historii miasta. Przedmiotem prac były kamie-

nice tworzące pierzeje Rynku w Opolu, które zostały zniszczone w wyniku działań wojennych w 1945 r. i odbudowane w latach 50. XX w. W ar-

tykule przedstawiono proces odbudowy opolskiego Rynku w kontekście zmienionej przynależności państwowej Opola i związanych z tym kwestii

ideologicznych i tożsamościowych, które miały wpływ na ostateczną formę odbudowanych kamienic. Podczas badań dokonano analizy przede

wszystkim materiałów archiwalnych: piśmienniczych, przechowywanych w Archiwum Państwowym w Opolu, oraz projektowych, znajdujących się

w Archiwum Państwowym w Katowicach. Badania uzupełniła literatura przedmiotu, w której poruszany był temat odbudowy obszarów staromiej-

skich, publikacje historyczne poświęcone Opolu oraz lokalna prasa.

W czasie prac udało się ustalić, że wygląd opolskiego Rynku po jego odbudowie znacznie różni się od tego, jak obszar ten prezentował się przed

II wojną światową. Analiza materiałów ikonogracznych (przedwojennych pocztówek i fotograi oraz fotograi współczesnych) pozwoliła ukazać,

że podczas odbudowy XIX-wieczne kamienice o zróżnicowanej szacie stylistycznej zastąpione zostały w dużej mierze przez zunikowane baroki-

zujące budowle. Analiza materiałów archiwalnych poświęconych odbudowie opolskiego Rynku wskazuje, że proces ten miał nie tylko przywrócić

spójność przestrzenną obszarowi staromiejskiemu, odtworzyć śródmiejską infrastrukturę i zapewnić nowe mieszkania, ale także ukazać zaradność

lokalnych władz i udowodnić, że Opole było miastem odwiecznie polskim, które w 1945 r. powróciło do Macierzy. Wyraźne różnice pomiędzy przed-

i powojennym wyglądem opolskiego Rynku każą zadawać pytania o tożsamościowe znaczenie procesu odbudowy, wartości wiązane z konkretnymi

stylami architektonicznymi oraz próby kreacji zupełnie nowej wizji historii Opola, w której wątki „polskie” zostają wyeksponowane po to, by legi-

tymizować włączenie miasta do granic Polski i ukonstytuować zupełnie nową tożsamość miasta.

Słowa kluczowe: architektura, urbanistyka, Ziemie Odzyskane, Opole, odbudowa

[34] Opole, W. Szewczyk (red.), Sport i Turystyka, Warszawa

1956.

[35] Horoszkiewicz R., Przechadzka po Opolu, “Głosy znad Odry”

1955, nr 28 (6.08.1955), 1.

[36] Olszewski A., Przegląd koncepcji stylu narodowego w teorii ar-

chitektury polskiej przełomu XIX i XX wieku, „Sztuka i Krytyka. Ma-

teriały do studiów i dyskusji z zakresu teorii i historii sztuk, krytyki

artystycznej oraz badań nad sztuką” 1956, R. 7, nr 3–4, 275–372.