19, 21 Wielopole street in Kraków, Heritage building in Kraków, Poland.
The former PKO building at 19 and 21 Wielopole Street is a bank palace in Kraków's Wesoła district, built 1922–1925 in academic classicism on a triangular plot between Wielopole and Dietla streets. Its reinforced-concrete frame carries three wings around two small inner courtyards, with a rounded corner holding the main entrance. The facade is articulated by a row of giant composite half-columns supporting a projecting cornice, topped by an attic.
The building was completed in 1925, designed by architects Adolf Szyszko-Bohusz and A. Tichy to serve as a financial institution. It went up during a period when Poland had recently regained independence and new institutional buildings were reshaping the city.
The building's rounded corner at Wielopole Street marks the main entrance, above which tall rectangular windows light the former banking hall. Inside, a round vestibule with a multicoloured stone floor and a star at its centre leads to the main staircase. The first-floor operating hall, topped by a dome with an oculus, has been compared to the interior of the Roman Pantheon.
The building is within walking distance of Kraków's historic center and easy to spot from the street. Visitors can take in the facade from the pavement along Wielopole Street without needing to enter.
One of the building's architects, Adolf Szyszko-Bohusz, also worked on restoration projects at Wawel Castle, Poland's most important royal residence. It is unusual to connect the same name to a downtown bank building and to the walls of a medieval royal castle.
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