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Sukiennice – Krakow's first Shopping Center

The Sukiennice (Cloth Hall) is one of Krakow's most recognizable symbols. Situated right in the heart of the Main Square, the great Renaissance building cannot be missed by anyone. But it's not just the size and location that matter: the Cracow Cloth Hall is one of the city's highlights, and the illuminated Sukiennice at night is an unforgettable sight.

Sukiennice - the Medieval Shopping Centre

The first cloth hall was created shortly after the location of Rynek Glowny and Krakow itself in 1257, but the first stone building was erected there a century later. The Gothic hall lasted until a fire in 1555, after which it was restored to become the Renaissance masterpiece we know now.

Aside from architecture, the 15^th and 16^th century were also the time of Sukiennice's greatest glory. Krakow was then a major trade centre, and the Cloth Hall was its heart. Eastern merchants traded spices, silk, leather and wax for Cracow's specialties: textiles, lead, and salt from the Wieliczka Mine. The good times didn't last long however, since along with the progressing political and economic ruin of Poland, the city, and with it the Sukiennice, lost much of its glory. It was renovated yet again in the 1870s by Tomasz Pryliński, who was helped by Jan Matejko, the famous Polish painter, a few of whose major works are now exhibited on the first floor of the Cloth Hall.

Sukiennice Today

These days, the main part of the Sukiennice once again plays the traditional role of a shopping centre, although the “merchants” now trade in souvenirs. Be it amber jewelery, traditional wood or leather ware, or simply whatever-you-can-think-of-that-has-Krakow-written-on-it, it can be found there in all types and sorts. Plus, if you have the right kind of money, you can leave the Cloth Hall dressed in full metal knight's armor, supplemented by a sword, a mace or an ax; an outfit suitable to fight the Krakow Dragon!

The 19th Century Polish Art Museum in the Krakow Cloth Hall

For the less bloodthirsty, there is the fine art museum on the first floor. The lengthy name says it all: The Gallery of the 19th Century Polish Art in Sukiennice. The Gallery's four rooms present Poland's biggest collection of 19^th century sculpture and painting.

The first room, known as The Enlightenment Room, features paintings by classicist and pre-Romantic artists, such as Marcello Bacciarelli, Józef Grassi or Aleksander Orłowski.

The second room of the Sukiennice Museum is named after the painter Piotr Michałowski, whose works contain mostly portraits.

The Room of the Prussian Homage features, unsurprisingly – The Prussian Homage by Jan Matejko, and other historical panoramas by some of Poland's most famous painters, like Henryk Siemiradzki, Jacek Malczewski, Henryk Rodakowski and Artur Grottger.

The last of the rooms on the Cloth Hall's first floor is devoted mostly to landscape art, with a few exceptions, notably the famous scandalous painting by Władysław Podkowiński, The Frenzy of Ecstasy (Szał Uniesień), a symbolist work presenting a naked woman riding a wild black horse.

Due to the renovation of the Cloth Hall building and the Main Square, all of the fine art collection has been moved to the Castle in Niepołomice, a town near Krakow, but it should be back to its rightful place in the first floor of Cracow's Sukiennice sometime in 2009.