The central square of Katowice, laid out in the second half of the 19th century, with tram tracks, the theatre building and a midday bugle call.
The Market Square (Rynek) in Katowice is a square in the very centre of Śródmieście, one of the city's main squares. Streets leading into it include ul. 3 Maja, ul. Warszawska and ul. Staromiejska. The buildings around the square went up from the mid-19th century, and after a thorough rebuilding in 2016 the whole market square was brought back into use.
The square grew up at a crossing of roads on the site of an old inn by the Roździanka river, today's Rawa. The inn collapsed in 1864, a year before Katowice was granted town rights. The first plans for a market square were drawn up in the 1850s, and the buildings were completed in 1875. At that time it was the largest market square in the city.
The names of the square changed along with state borders. Until 1922 it was called Friedrichsplatz, in the interwar period it was called Rynek, in 1926-1939 also Plac Marszałka Piłsudskiego, and during the German occupation Ring.
In 1906-1907 the City Theatre building was erected on the east side, today the seat of the Stanisław Wyspiański Silesian Theatre. As early as 1896 the city's first steam narrow-gauge railway to Siemianowice set off from the Market Square, and by 1907 tram lines to Bytom and Mysłowice had been built.
After 1945 the south side of the Market Square was destroyed. In the 1960s and 1970s historic tenement houses were demolished, and in their place stood modernist buildings, among them the Skarbek department store and the Zenit department store. As a result the Market Square lost the character of an enclosed square and for a time became a traffic roundabout; it was closed to cars again in the 1970s.
The rebuilding of the Rondo-Rynek zone began on 3 March 2012. The rebuilding plans included, among other things, the so-called green track, that is, a tramway laid with grass.
On 27 August 1922 ceremonies marking the incorporation of part of Upper Silesia into Poland were held on the Market Square, with the participation of Marshal Józef Piłsudski.
On 4 September 1939 the Germans murdered about 80 defenders of the city in the courtyard of a tenement house on the corner of the Market Square and what was then ul. Zamkowa. On the nearby Plac Obrońców Katowic stands the Monument to the Scouts of September.
On 20 October 1981 clashes between demonstrators and the militia took place on the Market Square, after the authorities removed from the square a Solidarity van from which independent publications were sold.
Tram tracks run across the square in several directions. On the Market Square and most of the streets leading from it, bans or restrictions on car entry apply, and beneath the square flows the covered channel of the Rawa.
At midday the Katowice bugle call (hejnał) rings out from the top of a tenement house at the junction of ul. Młyńska and ul. Pocztowa. This custom has a short tradition, as it was begun in 2002.
In the nearest area you can see the Rialto Cinema-Theatre, about 300 m away, and the Katowice History Museum, about 700 m from the square. Half a kilometre from the Market Square stands the Monument to the Silesian Insurgents.
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