Powstańców Warszawy Square

Powstańców Warszawy Square lies within Wrocław's Stare Miasto, in the part once called Wrocław's New Town, in the Oławskie district. The area between the former arms of the Oder and the Oława took on its present character only after the demolition of the city fortifications in 1807, when the Old Town Promenade was laid out, and in the second half of the 19th century major developments began here.

The Old and New Regency buildings

Two buildings stand by the square that gave it its present appearance. The older Wrocław Regency building was built in 1883-1886 to a design by Karl Friedrich Edell, referencing the style of 16th-century Renaissance German palaces, and originally housed offices and flats for regency officials. Today the building houses the National Museum in Wrocław, and the building itself was entered into the heritage register on 24 July 1976. The second building, the New Regency, was erected in 1936-1939 to a design by Felix Bräuler, G. Kühn, H. Böhm and Richard Konwiarz. It is a three-storey, Neoclassical building with a monumental portico, in the architecture typical of the Third Reich period. Today it houses the Lower Silesian Voivodeship Office.

A square that changed its name several times

The square's name changed along with the city's history. The German square was successively called Holz Platz and Lessingplatz (until 1945), and after the war it functioned as plac Jana Ursyna Niemcewicza, plac Wojewódzki and plac Wojewody Stanisława Piaskowskiego, before receiving its current name commemorating the Warsaw insurgents in 1957.

The skyscraper that was never built

In 1919-1921 the architect Max Berg prepared a design for the first Wrocław skyscraper in the Expressionist style, with between 20 and 40 floors, intended to house, among other things, a town hall and a Museum of Applied Arts. The project was never realised, and the square retained its buildings from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Practical information

• Powstańców Warszawy Square, Wrocław, Oławskie district, within the Stare Miasto
• Close to the Racławice Panorama and the Grunwaldzki Bridge
• Around the square lies the greenery of Juliusz Słowacki Park and the historic buildings of the Old and New Regency