Kamienica Pod Zieloną Dynią, Wrocław

Kamienica Pod Zieloną Dynią is the historic townhouse you see on the southern side of Wrocław’s Market Square, on the stretch once called the Golden Cup side. In the thirteenth century, plots twenty-two and twenty-three formed one property, occupied by a building whose entrance was in its side wall. By 1487, Caspar Kristian ran an inn here, and it was later joined to a rear building on what is now Ofiar Oświęcimskich Street.

A remodelling in 1541 gave the house its Renaissance character. The original façade had three storeys and three window bays, while its entrance portal carried both the year and a Latin declaration that God’s word endures forever. That earlier house did not survive intact: in 1910 it was demolished and replaced by a five-storey modern commercial building designed by H. Buchmann.

The siege of Wrocław in 1945 destroyed the building again. Reconstruction between 1952 and 1960 deliberately returned it to a form close to the Renaissance house. The recreated portal preserves two dates—1541 and 1954—quietly pairing the first transformation with the postwar return of this Market Square address.