kamienica Pod Złotym Pelikanem, Wrocław

Kamienica Pod Złotym Pelikanem occupies number forty-three on the Rynek’s northern frontage, the stretch called Targ Łakoci. Its name, “Under the Golden Pelican,” belongs to a townhouse whose story reaches back to the early thirteenth century. Notice the slim gable and the animated surface of the façade: Franz Rava, a merchant owner, gave the house its Baroque character during a renovation in seventeen thirty-four.

Baroque here means architecture made to feel theatrical and energetic, rather than restrained. This plot had already changed repeatedly. A brick house of several storeys stood here in the thirteenth century, while a brewery formed part of the property at its rear during the fifteenth century.

Later alterations recast the frontage in a more classical manner and adapted the interior for the M. Fischhoff department store. War in nineteen forty-five severely damaged the building.

Emil Kaliski’s reconstruction, carried out from nineteen fifty-three to nineteen fifty-five, returned it to a Baroque-inspired appearance. What you see is therefore a long urban memory, rebuilt from layers of trade, craft, destruction, and restoration.