At the Museum of Ceramics, City History Branch at 14 Kutuzowa Street, an exceptionally interesting exhibition entitled “Wrocław and Bolesławiec, metropolis – province?” was open from 20 December 1996 to 5 February of the current year. The somewhat provocative title (at the beginning of the 19th century, Wrocław had 65,000 inhabitants, while Bolesławiec had only 3,534) was intended to encourage visitors to consider the analogy between the significant architectural and urban-planning changes carried out in both centres in the second half of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century. At that time, many European cities were undergoing major transformations, being modernised in line with contemporary architectural trends. A comparison can also be made because both cities were influenced by one of the finest creative centres in Europe at the time, namely the Royal Building Academy in Berlin, which simultaneously exercised patronage over the offices of the city architects of Wrocław and Bolesławiec. Good artists and designers were engaged, and the changes began with the reorganisation of the Market Square, which had previously been filled with craftsmen’s booths and stalls. The conscious attitude of the municipal authorities and the townspeople themselves, who sought to beautify their place of residence, led to the purchase of those booths and stalls in order to facilitate traffic in the centre and improve the appearance of the Market Square. This was achieved by renovating the Town Hall and replacing the façades of the tenement houses with modern shop windows; historic portals purchased from the owners of the houses were built into the Town Hall façade. The corner tenement houses were rebuilt (at the outlets of Prusa, Daszyńskiego and Mickiewicza streets), followed by the redevelopment of the suburb, with representative rental buildings being constructed (Świdnicka Street in Wrocław; Daszyńskiego and Mickiewicza streets in Bolesławiec). New villa districts, the so-called West Ends, were created (Eichborn’s villa on Kościuszki Street in Wrocław; Komuny Paryskiej and Górników streets in Bolesławiec), as well as small castles and palaces with park and garden layouts (Świniary in Wrocław; Woliera Castle in Bolesławiec, now the Special Education Complex at 16 Zgorzelecka Street). A synagogue was built near the pond (designed by Zschetzchingka, whose Romanesque-Byzantine style recalled and referred to Oppler’s Wrocław design). At the Promenade, through the efforts of Kessler, a bath complex was built in 1894/95, simultaneously with the first building of this type in Wrocław, which no longer exists today; the one in Bolesławiec survived and was rebuilt. The stages of this reconstruction can be seen in old photographs of Bolesławiec. A grammar school was also built at the Promenade, highly regarded by Silesian art historians and now housing the courthouse, according to plans by Oppermann; the school’s assembly hall was one of the most interesting in Silesia.
At that time, many recreational venues, restaurants, tennis courts, bowling alleys and shooting ranges were established. Wrocław’s representative complex was Haase’s restaurant in South Park; its smaller counterparts, though no less attractive, included Leśny Zamek, Szwajcarka, Tivoli and the café on Kutuzowa Street in Bolesławiec. Various celebrations provided opportunities to decorate the cities—the photographs displayed showed Kościuszki Square in Wrocław during the welcoming of Emperor Wilhelm II and Bolesławiec Market Square during a municipal guild festival.
In the second half of the 20th century, spacious, functional hospital buildings were constructed outside the cities. The Bolesławiec hospital complex, designed by Schiller, dates from this period and preceded similar facilities in Wrocław by several years (the hospital on Tysiąclecia Street in Bolesławiec was built in 1858–63). Wrocław’s bridge designs served as a model for the modern structure over the Bóbr built in 1920 by the architect Spohn. Information concerning Wrocław’s architecture and urban planning was taken from a publication by Iwona Binkowska, MA, of the Graphic Arts Cabinet at the University Library in Wrocław. The Wrocław section presented at the exhibition came from the University Library’s collections and comprised 44 photographs from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and three photographs from the Silesian-Lusatian Cabinet. The Bolesławiec section comprised 150 items from the Museum’s own collections and private collections made available for the exhibition. Thanks to the generosity of Z. Mirecki, E. Miżdal, A. Rejwerski, M. Szczepańska, J. Leszczyński and R. Pomichter, it was possible to present the subject fairly comprehensively. The exhibition was prepared substantively by Anna Bober, MA, a Museum employee. The visual design was prepared by artist Zbigniew Zieliński.
The exhibition’s authors were guided by the idea of showing visitors how the city’s appearance was once cared for, what aspirations guided the decisions of the city authorities at that time, and how much effort was made to ensure that Bolesławiec could match the metropolises of the period.
Teresa Wolanin, MA, Director of the Museum of Ceramics