Ratusz, Wrocław

Ratusz is Wrocław’s Old Town Hall, a major Gothic landmark in the centre of the Market Square. Built and expanded over roughly two and a half centuries, it now houses the Museum of Bourgeois Art, welcomes cultural events, and contains the historic Świdnicka Cellar.

Ratusz, Wrocław’s Old Town Hall, occupies the centre of the Market Square as one of the city’s defining landmarks. Its brick Gothic manner uses the medieval language of Gothic architecture in brick, and the building stands at an angle within the square. Notice the tower and the richly worked outer surfaces: this was not made in a single campaign, but enlarged and reshaped for about two hundred and fifty years.

Around the turn of the fourteenth century, it began as a one-storey building with cellars and a tower, serving trade before it became a fuller seat of municipal power. New rooms followed as the council’s responsibilities grew; during the late fifteenth century, prosperity brought the Great Hall, treasury rooms, and a remade Burghers’ Hall. The city’s coat of arms was installed on the tower in fifteen thirty-six, and its upper section was rebuilt in fifteen fifty-eight and fifteen fifty-nine.

By fifteen sixty, the main outline visible today had taken form. A bomb passed through the roof near the end of the Second World War without exploding. Restoration began in the nineteen fifties. Today the building contains the Museum of Bourgeois Art, hosts exhibitions and cultural events, and has Świdnicka Cellar in its basement, one of Europe’s oldest restaurants.