Market Square - a medieval market square in Wroclaw, now the central part of the pedestrian zone. It forms a rectangle with dimensions of 205 by 175 meters. It is the second (after Krakow) largestzy square of Europe. The buildings surrounding the Market Square consist of buildings from various historical eras. The central part of the Market is occupied by a mid-market block, consisting of the City Hall, the New City Hall and numerous townhouses. The Market forms an urban layout with the diagonally adjacent Solny Square and the square around St. Elizabeth Church. There are 11 streets leading to the Market Square - two in each corner (Świdnicka, Oławska, E. Geppert (Zamkowa), Ruska, św. Mikołaja, Odrzańska, Kuźnicza, Wita Stwosza), plus the 14th or 15th century pierced Kurzy Targ on the eastern side and narrow Prison Street and St. Dorota Passage. The Market Square was established in connection with the location of Wroclaw, according to more recent research, as early as the reign of Henry the Bearded, between 1214 and 1232. Older publications claimed that it was not created until the second location in 1241-1242. Over time, patrician tenements were built around the Market Square, and around the middle of the 14th century, continuous frontages were formed and ownership divisions were consolidated. In the 19th century, streetcar lines, first horse-drawn and later also electric, were routed through Market Square. Streetcars ran through Market Square until the mid-1970s, when they were moved to Trasa W-Z. Between 1996 and 2000, the Market Square's surface was renovated, eventually closing down automobile traffic on its eastern side, and most of its facades were also restored. The Market Square now has 60 numbered properties, with some buildings having several numbers. The divisions of the plots usually run differently from the former location divisions, as a result of secondary divisions and scale-ups. Each plot also has its own historical name, usually related to an attribute once placed on the facade of the building or the fate of the place, such as Under the Griffins, Under the Blue Sun, Old Town Hall. The most important building in the Market Square was the City Hall, which was expanded from the end of the 13th century. City Hall. The Market Square was one of the few permitted places for retail trade in the city, and three large commercial buildings were erected there: the merchants' house (the clothiers' stalls - German: Kaufhaus), the smatruz (where baked goods and shoes were traded, Schmetterhaus) and the clothiers' house (Leinwandhaus), in addition to rows of Rich Stalls and clothiers' stalls, and the Small and Large Scales House. The oldest in the complex, built before the Mongol invasion, the merchants' house (on the site of today's Sukiennice Street) was a two-nave hall 13 meters wide and about 100 meters long, with 21 chambers adjoining each side, which had no windows and were connected to the hall only by a door. Two chambers on the south side were used for administrative purposes, while the remaining chambers were used for trading cloth. The central hall was covered by a roof plunging toward the central pillars, probably decorated with a suspended ceiling inside. On the east side, the cloth halls were enclosed by a wall with two gates, while on the west side the clothiers' house was transversely adjacent. In the southwestern corner, the building line of the mid-market block is withdrawn; there was a fish market there until the mid-18th century, and from 1745, in addition, a guardhouse, replaced in 1788 by a more impressive building designed by Carl Gotthard Langhans. After the abolition of trade privileges, the cloth halls occupying the center of the Market Square became redundant, so they were demolished in 1821 and 1824 and replaced with classicist townhouses. At the same time, the smatruz was demolished, expanding the row of houses north of it at the expense of its plot. In 1847 the Great Weigh House was demolished, erecting a horse monument to Frederick II by August Kiss, while in 1859 the Small Weigh House, the Canvassers' House and the Hop Office were demolished to make room for the New City Hall, designed by August Stüler. Meanwhile, a monument to Friedrich Wilhelm III, also designed by Kiss, was erected in 1861 on the site of the demolished Odwach. Shortly after World War II, both monuments were removed. In 1956, a monument to Aleksander Fredro, transported from Lviv, was erected in front of the City Hall in place of the Frederick William III monument. In 1988, the pillory on the eastern side of the City Hall, removed shortly after the war, was reconstructed. One of the buildings in the mid-market block was home to Jerzy Grotowski's Laboratory Theater, and today houses a center for the study of his work.
29.09.2013
