Plac im. Jana Nowaka-Jeziorańskiego, Kraków

Plac im. Jana Nowaka-Jeziorańskiego is the broad city square beside Kraków’s railway gateway, framed by the old Kraków Główny station building, Galeria Krakowska, the Wołodkowicz Palace, the andel’s hotel and Lubicz Street. Its story begins with the railway: construction of Kraków’s station started in eighteen forty-four, followed three years later by the line to Mysłowice. The land for today’s station and square came from the Marki monastery.

This was first Railway Square, from eighteen seventy until eighteen ninety-two, then Railway Station Square for more than a century. Early in the twenty-first century, the older buildings here, including the Smok bar, were cleared away. Galeria Krakowska rose on the square’s northern part from two thousand four, and the andel’s hotel followed in two thousand seven.

That same year brought a thorough reconstruction as part of Kraków’s transport-centre project. Notice the monument to Ryszard Kukliński: it was unveiled here on the fourth of June two thousand eighteen. In winter, part of this square becomes an artificial ice rink, a temporary change in a place shaped above all by arrivals and departures.