Rudolf Kern Building

Rudolf Kern Tenement is a habitation building located at Mickiewicz Alley 1, in Bydgoszcz, Poland. It has been inscribed on the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship Heritage List.

Rudolf Kern Tenement
Polish: Kamienica Rudolfa Kerna w Bydgoszczy
Tenement from Gdanska Street
General information
Type	Tenement
Architectural style	Art Nouveau
Classification	N°601377-Reg.A/1086, 20 November 1995[1]
Location	Mickiewicz Alley 1, at the intersection with Gdanska Street, Bydgoszcz, Poland
Coordinates
Groundbreaking	1903
Completed	1904
Client	Rudolf Kern
Technical details
Floor count	5
Design and construction
Architect	Rudolf Kern

Location

The building stands on the eastern side of Gdańska Street at the intersection with Mickiewicz Alley.

It stands close to remarkable tenements in the same street:

• Alfred Schleusener Tenement at N°62;
• Józef Święcicki tenement at N°63;
• Eduard Schulz Tenement at N°66-68;
• Tenement at Gdanska street 71;
• Tenement at Gdanska street 75;
• Ernst Bartsch tenement at N°79;
• Paul Storz Tenement at N°81.

History

On the plot, before the current building, there was a tavern (German: wirtschaft), managed by Emil Manthei[2]

This made the area prone to leisure, emphasized by the presence, since the end of the 19th century, of a theatre and a restaurant on the other side of the intersection (at Gdańska street 68/66).

The house was built in 1903–1904, designed by the architect Rudolf Kern, a student of Józef Święcicki who also erected or redesigned other buildings in Gdańska Street:[3]

• August Mentzel Tenement at N°5;
• Eduard Schulz Tenement at N°66-68;
• Tenement at Gdanska street 71.

Rudolf Kern has originally erected the tenement for his own use, private and business: he has lived there until 1922.

The building will soon accommodate a four-star hotel, including a gastronomic restaurant, with recreational and commercial areas[4]

Features

The building has a decorative Art Nouveau facade, with a large and impressive building consisting of four main floors and one hidden in the upper roof. In a way its size balances the symmetry with the opposite building.

It is characterized by an asymmetric arrangement of loggia and bays, typical decorative elements including leaf and tendril motifs, intertwined organic forms, mostly curvaceous in shape.[5]

Notable elements:

• low-relief adorned portal;
• large threatening masks on the facade;
• many interior design original elements such as staircase, stained glass, woodwork.

The building has been put on the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Heritage List N°601377 Reg.A/1086, on 20 November 1995.[1]

Gallery

• 
  Frontage onto Mickiewicz alley
• 
  Art Nouveau detail
• 
  Masked faces on the facade
• 
  Detail of the portal
• 
  Detail of the carved door
• 
  Detail of a bow window
• 
  Detail of a motif

See also

• Bydgoszcz
• Gdanska Street in Bydgoszcz
• (in Polish) Downtown district in Bydgoszcz
• (in Polish) Rudolf Kern

References

1. zabytek|kujawsko-pomorskie|issued=1.03.2014
2. "names". Adressbuch nebst allgemeinem Geschäfts-Anzeiger von Bromberg und dessen Vororten für 1900: auf Grund amtlicher und privater Unterlagen. Bromberg: Dittmann. 1900. p. 126.
3. Jastrzębska-Puzowska, Iwona (2006). Od miasteczka do metropolii. Rozwój architektoniczny i urbanistyczny Bydgoszczy w latach 1850–1920. Bydgoszcz: Mado. ISBN 8389886715.
4. Tota, Justina (23 February 2017). "W kamienicy na rogu Gdańskiej i Mickiewicza będzie hotel". expressbydgoski.pl. expressbydgoski. Retrieved 21 May 2018.
5. "Art Nouveau Design: Characteristics, History, Artists". visual-arts-cork.com. Retrieved 6 March 2015.

External links

• Art Nouveau in Bydgoszcz

Bibliography

• Bręczewska-Kulesza Daria, Derkowska-Kostkowska Bogna, Wysocka A. : Ulica Gdańska. Przewodnik historyczny, Bydgoszcz 2003

Panorama on Gdanska Street intersection with Mickiewicz alley, the building on the left