Architectural Details in Krakow, Poland

Don’t you love to look at architectural details on buildings?

I live in the suburbs of a middle-sized town in California.

Ours is a tract house and we’re perfectly happy with it.

I stroll our neighborhood admiring gardens and colorful front doors.

But the houses themselves look similar.

That’s not true in the big city and certainly wasn’t in Krakow.

My poor family got impatient, but I often stopped to take photos of architectural details I saw on buildings.

Here are a few of my favorites.

We saw this splendid mural in the Jewish quarter.

I specifically pointed it out to my husband because we have a faux Chagall hanging on a wall at home with similar characters.

Poland is considered a Catholic country and we saw Jesus and Mary everywhere!

A casual walk down the street involved passing an ignored crucifix on a church wall.

We saw many three-dimensional sculptures as we wandered the streets–particularly buildings facing the Cloth Hall Market Square.

Of course with sculpture, you have to come up with ways to protect it from the birds!

Architectural details abound and I wondered why architects designed flourishes three or four flights up where seemingly no one would see them.

Or even on the roof!

Why would you construct those statutes five stories about the ground?

I only noticed them while waiting near a bus stop and glancing skyward at the weather!

The ornaments may have been a throwback to the medieval past when not everyone could read.

This carved mural may very well have marked a restaurant–which it still does in 2018 for a non-Polish speaking visitor!

I suspect the architects designed most of these details to please the owners.

Wouldn’t you love to have a balcony like this?

Romeo probably wouldn’t mind calling up to a Juliet with such carved beauty!

The Cloth Hall is gorgeous–from every angle!

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Why put such architectural details on windows three stories up? Click to Tweet