Plac Akademicki Ensemble in Bytom

Plac Akademicki is an oval square in the centre of Bytom, about 600 m from the Market Square, surrounded by compact buildings from the early 20th century. It measures about 100 by 170 m and covers 18,700 m². The whole ensemble is entered in the heritage register because it has survived almost unchanged since the 1920s.

How the square came about

The oval square was already envisaged in the plan of 1905, as part of a north-south urban axis, and the city development plan of 1907 added new blocks of buildings to it. The first buildings went up in 1905, the tenement at no. 3 was built in 1909, and the tenements at nos. 13 and 15 in 1912-1913. The police headquarters building was built in 1925-1926, and the eastern frontage in 1925-1927. The square changed its name several times: it was, among others, Auguste-Victoria-Platz, Reichspräsidentenplatz and Feliks Dzierżyński Square, and around 1990 it received its present name.

Frontages and style

The western frontage consists of the Art Nouveau tenements at nos. 1, 3, 5, 13 and 15 and the modernist ones at nos. 7, 9 and 11 with Art Deco elements. The eastern one is in a Functionalist-Expressionist style with Art Deco. In the north stands the former police headquarters, in an Expressionist style with Art Deco elements, now occupied by a department and a dental surgery clinic of the medical university. At nos. 23-25 stood the building of the PZPR City Committee, rebuilt from a miners' insurance office. Among those who worked on the design of the tenements were Eduard Arndt, Alfons Powollik and Eugen Walter, and the headquarters was designed by Wilhelm Bahlsen.

The green in the middle

The middle of the square is taken up by greenery with a fountain from 1947, designed by Józef Sawicki and Tadeusz Sadowski. Around it sit five boys on a tortoise, a crayfish and a frog. In the southern part, hidden among the trees, stand two air-raid shelters from 1942 with ventilation turrets. In 1932 the “sleeping lion” monument was moved to the square. From the square it is a short walk to the Silesian Opera House in Bytom.

Practical information

• Address: plac Akademicki in Bytom, city centre, a quarter of an hour's walk from the Market Square.
• The ensemble is viewed from the outside: the frontages serve mainly as housing and institutions.
• It is best to walk all the way round the square, comparing the Art Nouveau tenements on the west side with the Expressionist building in the north.