Kościół pw. Niepokalanego Poczęcia Najświętszej Maryi Panny, Kraków

The brick church before you is the Church of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a Carmelite church on Rakowicka Street. It is a protected historic monument and was built in Neo-Gothic style, a revival of medieval Gothic design. Tadeusz Stryjeński designed the first phase: the tower, sanctuary and a side chapel rose between 1907 and 1910.

The church you see was only completed later. Between 1929 and 1932, Franciszek Mączyński designed a reduced nave, with three bays rather than the five originally intended, as an international financial crisis approached. Notice the façade above the main entrance.

Its mosaic shows the Virgin Mary honoured by Saint John of the Cross and Saint Teresa of Ávila; Jan Bukowski designed it, and Albert Pieczonka assembled it in 1934. By the main doorway, a memorial plaque from 1963 marks the centenary of the January Uprising and carries busts of Adam Chmielowski and Brother Rafał Kalinowski. Near the side entrance stands a small iron cross on a sandstone base.

It once marked a city toll gate, then came here in 1934 to commemorate the tram route’s opening to Rakowicki Cemetery. Inside, the church’s alabaster fittings use several naturally varied colours of stone from Żurawno.