Old towns & squares

Market Square in Oświęcim

A medieval trading square whose present look is the result of a modernisation completed in May 2014 — a cobbled surface, a reconstructed well and a glass panel over the preserved fragments of the walls of the first town hall from the 16th century.

From timber buildings to town houses

The square was laid out when the town was chartered as its central trading point; it was originally ringed by timber buildings, swallowed by successive fires. Already in the 16th century a town hall with a clock stood here, and the final brick shape of the frontages was formed by town houses built mostly in the 19th century. The present town hall at number 12 was built in 1872–1875 as a brick, Neo-Gothic building; every day at noon the town bugle call sounds from its tower, and the building houses the Society of Lovers of the Oświęcim Land.

Revitalising the square

A turning point came with the demolition in 2009 of the "Tęcza" shopping pavilion of 1966, which stood on a German air-raid shelter in the middle of the square. The modernisation, finished in May 2014, cost PLN 7.6 million and partly restored the square's pre-war appearance, adding illuminations and a lit fountain in the north-eastern part.

Town houses with a history

The Ślebarski town house at number 14 from the early 19th century now holds the district court, and house no. 11 was remodelled during the Second World War in the Heimatstil style. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries the "Herz" hotel operated here, hosting Józef Piłsudski. The tall tower of the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary rises above the square.