NBP Building in Kraków, Neoclassical bank building at Basztowa Street, Kraków, Poland.
The NBP Building at Basztowa 20 is an academic-classicist bank house of 1921–1925, set between Jan Matejki Square and Zacisze Street. Its facade carries a projecting bay with four great Ionic columns, a belvedere and an attic; the plinth is limestone, the rest faced in artificial stone. Karol Hukan's red-brown sculptures of agriculture and industry crown the front, and Stanisław Popławski carved the attic reliefs, including fighting bison on the west side.
Constructed between 1921 and 1925, architects Kazimierz Wyczyński and Teodor Hoffmann designed it as the headquarters of the Polish Bank. The building became a symbol of modern Polish architecture during the interwar period.
The site was long occupied by the Lwowski Hotel, renamed Centralny in 1879, and by a tenement house at ulica Zacisze where Stanisław Wyspiański lived from 1883 to 1895 under the care of his aunt Joanna and her husband Kazimierz Stankiewicz. After returning from Paris he set up his first Kraków studio in the flat of his uncle Kazimierz Rogowski, the neighbours' relative. Two plaques on the corner facade, added in 2017, commemorate Wyspiański and Feliks Młynarski.
The building stands at Basztowa 20, between Jan Matejki Square and Zacisze Street in Kleparz, just outside the old town. A new entrance was made from the side of Matejki Square during the 2015–2016 renovation. Two plaques on the corner facade recall Stanisław Wyspiański and Feliks Młynarski.
The 2015–2016 general renovation restored the operating hall's original chessboard-pattern floor and recreated its pre-war décor, after the 1970s remodel had stripped it out and added green stone partitions. A new entrance was cut on the Plac Matejki side, and the upper-floor staff flats were converted into offices.
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