Old Prison (Wrocław)

Brief information

The Old Prison in Wroclaw is interesting because its present-day peaceful life is literally inserted into a former prison layout. The building stands in the city center, on Prison Street, which was named after it. At the beginning of the 14th century, the prison was square in plan and three stories high, with rooms for prisoners and guards; later it was extended from the sides of Prison Street and Nozownicza Street until it became a complex with an inner courtyard.

Its prison function disappeared at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. After that, the building housed a pawnshop and charitable organizations, and today it is home to the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The sharpest contrast remains below: the cellars, where prisoners were held and where the torture chamber was located, are now occupied by the Pracoffnia pub; the inner courtyard is used as the cinematic cafe Motyla Noga.

What to Notice First

It makes sense to look at the building as a former mechanism of isolation that was gradually opened up and adapted to new purposes. Its original form was square, but additions from the side of Prison Street made the plan rectangular, while the addition from the side of Nozownicza Street turned the prison into a more complex ensemble. The inner courtyard is important for precisely this reason: it did not appear as a decorative void, but as part of an expanded building.

From Nozownicza Street, you can note the enlarged window openings: they were widened already in the 20th century, when the building's former closed function had become a thing of the past. The cellars offer another key to reading the place: formerly, especially dangerous prisoners and people of the lower estates were kept there, and the torture chamber was also located there; now these rooms are connected with the pub. On the window facing Prison Street is the Wroclaw dwarf “Prisoner” — a small detail on the facade that directly recalls why the street got its name.