Kamienica Pod Krukami, Kraków

Kamienica Pod Krukami, the Raven Tenement, occupies number 25 on the Main Market Square in Kraków’s Old Town. What appears as a single town house began when two Gothic houses were united and rebuilt during the nineteenth century. Anna Tyszkiewicz, niece of Prince Józef Poniatowski, acquired those earlier homes in the middle of that century.

Later, Tomasz Pryliński oversaw another remodelling; Jacek Matusiewicz and Teofil Żebrawski designed the façade. Its history also holds a grim chapter: German occupiers made it the local headquarters of the Nazi Party during the Second World War. Since 1991, this address has been home to the International Cultural Centre and its gallery.

The building entered the heritage register on 24 February 1966. That sequence makes this façade a compact record of reinvention and occupation.