Poland’s culture minister has unveiled plans for the former Cracovia Hotel to become a museum of architecture and design. By buying the communist-era building from private developers, the government prevented them from turning the site into a shopping centre, said Piotr Gliński.
The modernist building, located at the edge of Kraków’s historic city centre, opened in 1965. It was at the time one of the largest and most modern hotels in Poland, with over 300 rooms, a restaurant, casino and conference facilities.
Hotel Cracovia pictured in the communist era (Witold Cęckiewicz/Kamil Antosiewicz Monika Powalisz, under CC BY 2.0)
The hotel continued to operate until 2011, when it was closed and bought by a private developer, Echo Investment, for 32 million zloty. The firm hoped to demolish the building and erect a shopping centre or offices in its place.
But those plans were blocked by city officials, and the former hotel was instead added to the register of protected monuments. Since then, parts of the building have operated as shops, galleries and cafes, but the main hotel itself remains unused.
At the end of 2016, the culture ministry bought the site for 29 million zloty, with the intention of giving it to the National Museum in Kraków (NMK), which is located opposite the former hotel.
Hotel Cracovia before its closure (pictured in 2007 by Christopher Pratt/Flickr, under CC BY-SA 2.0)
Visiting Kraków today, Gliński – who as culture minister oversaw the 2016 purchase – revealed that work on creating the new museum of architecture and design will begin next year. Of the estimated 425 million zloty (€93 million) costs, around half will come from the state budget and half from European Union funds, he announced.
The exterior of the building will remain intact, as will other elements under legal protection, such as mosaics and stairs. But the remainder of the interior will undergo a “transformation” into a “modern museum” under the direction of the NMK, said Gliński, quoted by Gazeta Krakowska.
The culture minister celebrated the fact that the government had “managed – perhaps at the last minute – to buy this building from the hands of developers and protect Kraków from another shopping centre, because that is what was planned”.
Another famous communist-era hotel in Kraków, Hotel Forum on the banks of the Vistula river, has since its closure in 2002 similarly been repurposed to host bars, restaurants, exhibitions and an electronic music festival.
One historical building in the city that could not be saved from developers is a former tobacco factory. While for years it operated as a cultural and recreational space, in 2020 the complex was closed down by its Spanish owners, who have planned in the past to turn it into a hotel.
Last year also saw the completion, 45 years after construction began, of a communist-era skyscraper in Kraków. The building – which earned the nickname “Skeletor” among locals while sitting as an unfinished metal frame for decades – now hosts a modern office block.
Main image credit: Witold Cękiewicz/MNK (press materials)
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
