The building at 4 Grunwaldzka Street in Bolesławiec is not easy to classify—it is neither a villa from the era of industrial prosperity, nor a clumsy postwar structure, nor a styleless “revitalization” dating from the postwar years. This modernist edifice from the 1920s fascinates with its very silhouette, and it also conceals much more than meets the eye.
From an inn to a kindergarten
At the beginning, at 4 Gymnasialstrasse, on the site where the modernist building stands today, there was the Wintergarten inn, owned by a certain Rau.
In 1926, the local Protestant parish took over the plot. The community demolished the building, which many residents probably associated with fun and carefree evenings. We do not know whether they protested or merely commented quietly and sadly on the fact that only a construction site remained where the inn had stood.
Let us remember that inns once served a much broader function than today’s bars—they were centers of social life, where parties and handicraft meetings were organized, and even small religious services and political debates were held.
Protestants supported working women and abstinence
In 1929, the Protestants opened a new kindergarten on this site. It was a kind of revolution, both architecturally, since the modernist style had little representation in Bolesławiec, and socially.
At the same time, a care center for young women operated at the facility. This was where female workers employed at the Concordia textile mills and girls working in other nearby factories found shelter. The parish extended a helping hand to them, offering stable accommodation in the generally difficult living conditions of the 1920s.
The facility was monitored by the highest church authorities, who supervised the standard of education and the morality of the staff who lived in the building.
Having staff registered as residents inside the building—even today, this is an increasingly rare practice—was standard in prewar Poland (and Germany). Sometimes public buildings were almost self-sufficient, because they contained apartments, storage rooms, and even vegetable gardens and laundries.
Interestingly, a restaurant with mandatory prohibition was also opened at the kindergarten. At that time, the Protestant Church was fighting hard against alcoholism in society.