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Kamienica pod Orłem Kraków

Tenement House ‘Under the Eagle’ in Kraków

Frontowa, ceglana elewacja kamienicy. Po lewej stronie szyld restauracji Vintage. Pomiędzy drzwiami, a starym oknem na ścianie wisi tablica upamiętniająca Tadeusza Kościuszkę.
Situated at Kraków's Main Market Square, this historical tenement house with a Gothic-Renaissance brick façade is also known as the Kromer or Liszkowska Tenement House. Its history is associated with Pod Białym Orłem (‘Under the White Eagle’) pharmacy and the figure of Commander-in-Chief Tadeusz Kościuszko.

The brick tenement house, built in the second half of the 14th century, was rebuilt many times, for the first time at the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries, in the 16th century as a Renaissance tenement house, when an outbuilding was added. In 1544 it belonged to Bartłomiej Kromer, brother of the chronicler and the canon of Kraków, Marcin Kromer. In 1564 it was sold to Wojciech Sulikowski, who opened a pharmacy on the ground floor in 1569. The tenement changed owners and underwent successive reconstructions from the 16th to the 19th century. In the 16th century it still housed a pharmacy, in the 18th century Parvi's café and snooker room, and from 1809 onwards again the 'Pod Białym Orłem' pharmacy. Between 1895 and 1898, the pharmacy's owner, chemist and pharmacist Adolf Siedlecki thoroughly renovated the building according to a design by Władysław Ekielski. To this day, it still has the Gothic-Renaissance brick façade that was created at that time, and the first floor of the tenement and outbuildings were added. At the top of the house stands a sculpture of a phoenix (it is often mistaken for an eagle, but it is not an eagle) chiselled by Julian Szopiński, designed by Stanisław Wyspiański. Beautiful stylised furnishings with decorative eagles were placed in the pharmacy at the beginning of the 20th century but were removed in the late 1990s.

Tadeusz Kościuszko lived here in 1775 before leaving for America. In 1892, the Society named after him unveiled a plaque in honour of Kościuszko with a medallion bearing his effigy, the work of Walery Eljasz-Radzikowski. The plaque was destroyed by the Germans during World War II, and a new one with a medallion made by Tadeusz Stulgiński was erected in 1946 on the 200th anniversary of the Commander-in-Chief's birth.

It is a two-bay, four-storey building with a Gothic-Renaissance brick façade with blue elements. Renaissance coffered ceilings and polychromes from the 16th century have been preserved in the ground floor hall.


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