On the corner of Krakowskie Przedmieście and Królewska Streets in Warsaw today stands a post-war building designed by Bohdan Pniewski, known colloquially as the Kicked House. Few know, however, that until 1944 the ornamentation of this place was the magnificent Beyer tenement house. The architectural work designed by Józef Orłowski was one of the most representative addresses on the capital’s Royal Route. The building came to an end with the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising.
The Karol Beyer Tenement House in Warsaw
The tenement house of the well-known photographer Karol Beyer was built in 1863-1864 on the site of the demolished Ossoliński-Mokronowski palace. The composition of the building, which was designed by Józef Orłowski, was based on Neo-Renaissance motifs and constituted a very striking accent among the buildings on Krakowskie Przedmieście Street. A distinctive feature of the building was the corner rotunda crowning the intersection of two streets. This detail stood out from the surroundings and even inspired Wladyslaw Marconi when designing the nearby Bristol Hotel, which received an analogous solution in the form of a decorative gloriette. We wrote about the history of the Bristol HERE.
Architecture of the Beyer tenement house
The facades of the Beyer tenement were decorated with a set of 12 allegorical figures located between the second and third floors. Their execution was divided between several artists: Leonard Marconi developed the themes of sculpture, hydraulics and industry; Andrzej Pruszyński was responsible for the themes of architecture, mechanics and painting, while Faustyn Juliusz Cengler dealt with the themes of commerce, geometry, gardening, carpentry and painting. The facades were complemented by medallions depicting prominent Poles, executed by Antoni Frejtag, a pupil of Konstanty Hegel and Jakub Tatarkiewicz. This kind of decoration placed the tenement among the most representative examples of late Historicism in the entire area.
Functions and life of the building
After 1864, the ground floor of the building housed nine shops of varying profiles. Among them were Ksawery Regulski’s haberdashery store, Edward Hering’s tea store, Teodor Wright’s hat shop and E. Wende & Comp.’s academic bookshop, which remained in this location until 1928. The corner section was occupied successively by Krajewski’s lamp shop, then a shop and E. Wedel’s chocolate pump room. Just before the First World War, the “Stanisław Krause i S-ka” travel equipment shop operated here, and in the interwar years the floors were occupied by offices, including a branch of the editorial office of the Ilustrowany Kurier Codzienny. The tenement house was thus a point of intensive commercial and service programme, embedded in the rhythm of the representative thoroughfare of Krakowskie Przedmieście.
Karol Beyer’s tenement house in Warsaw – annihilation
The building burnt down in September 1944, after which it partially collapsed. The ruins, which were unsuitable for reconstruction, were demolished at the end of the 1940s. The entire former frontage of Królewska Street disappeared then. It was soon replaced by a new Ministry of Defence office building designed by Bohdan Pniewski. Due to its displacement in relation to the frontage of Krakowskie Przedmieście, it was nicknamed Kopnięty Dom by the citizens of Warsaw. Currently, the Armaments Inspectorate of the Ministry of Defence is located here. With the realisation of the post-war investment, the architecture that organised the spatial arrangement of the neighbourhood and defined the representative character of this part of the city disappeared irretrievably.
The memory of the building from Krakowskie Przedmieście
For decades the Beyer tenement house was a very important element of the development of the central part of Trakt Królewski. It was distinguished by its impressive volume, rich sculptures and developed functions, which built up the rank of the place. Today’s Kopnięty Dom, standing on its site since 1950, represents another stage in the history of Warsaw, which was built on the ruins of the demolished city.
Source: warszawa1939.pl, varsavianista.pl
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A tenement house in the early 20th century and the same place today. Source: Polona and Google Maps
The exit of Królewska Street in 1937 and 2021. Source: National Archives in Warsaw and Google Maps
