Wolności Square in Bielsko-Biała

Wolności Square is a square in the centre of Bielsko-Biała, in the Biała Wschód district. Together with Wojska Polskiego Square it was one of the two market squares of the former town of Biała. It was laid out in the 1780s as the New Market Square (Nowy Rynek).

Layout of the square

The square is roughly rectangular, 75 metres on the north-south axis and 40 metres on the east-west axis, with an area of 3,000 m². On the south it is bounded by 11 Listopada Street, the main shopping promenade of the city. In the middle there is a paid car park and a taxi rank, and along the eastern and western frontages runs a pedestrian zone with trees and flower beds.

History

The square came into being together with the Central Galician road, opened on 1 May 1785, of which today's 11 Listopada Street was a part. Around 1825 Johann Georg Lukas began building a finishing mill in the eastern frontage, the first factory in Biała with a steam engine. In 1846 a post office building was erected in the northern frontage, today the longest continuously serving public building in the city. In 1890 the Neuer Ring was renamed Franzensplatz, and after Biała was incorporated into Poland in 1918, Wolności Square (Freedom Square).

In the tenement house at number 2, in 1873-1939, the Polish Reading Room operated, a seat of national and workers' organisations. From here on 26 August 1914 a unit of Sokół members who fought in the Polish Legions marched out, and in February 1915 Józef Piłsudski took the salute here at a parade of the 1st Brigade of the Legions.

Buildings

The dominant feature is the former Pod Orłem hotel of 1905, designed by Alexander Neumann, in a Neo-Baroque and Neoclassical style, with the Art Nouveau decoration of its vestibule and staircase preserved and a Neo-Renaissance ballroom with an area of 709 m². Today it houses an office building and a shopping arcade. Next to it stand two tenement houses from the late 18th century, and in the western frontage the Neo-Baroque tenement house of David Feiner from 1902 and the Art Nouveau tenement house of Ignacy Borger from 1905 with floral bas-reliefs. The corner tenement house of Michael Neumann from 1904, with a dome, was entered in the heritage register in 2022.

Nearby

It is about 400 metres to the Reksio Monument, and St Nicholas's Cathedral lies less than a kilometre from here.

Practical information

• Location: the centre of Bielsko-Biała, on 11 Listopada Street.
• The pedestrian zone and promenade are accessible at all times; the car park in the middle of the square is paid, check the rules on the spot.