The building of Cracow Theatre on the corner of Szczepański Square and Jagiellońska Street.
Photo Ignacy Krieger, around 1875
The edifice of the theatre now called Stary (Old) is the oldest theatre building in Poland. It was founded in 1798 when an anterpreter (an organiser of plays, an owner of a theatre) Jacek Kluszewski adapted two tenements to the needs of the theatre. In 1841, when the town bought the building, it was reconstructed according to plans of Karol Kremer and Tomasz Majewski. The impressive edifice, which came into being after adjoining the third tenement, was based on the style of Renaissance Florence palaces. Apart from a scene and an auditorium, the building housed also: a restaurant, a cake shop and redoubt and billiard rooms. The Conservatoire and Musical Society had also its abode there. That building was immortalised by Ignacy Krieger, who took the photograph from the side of Szczepański Square. That square was the place where a market used to be. Tradeswomen from subcracovian villages used to sell fruit and vegetables there. On the left we see the view of Jagiellońska Street with Collegium Maius in the background. As an exposure of a plate used to take a fairly long time, the profiles of people caught in motion are usually blurred at the prints and sometimes they look like ghosts. Such a phenomenon we can see on this photograph.
The building of Cracow Theatre from the side of Szczepański Square with "security porches", around 1890
The theatre, which was at the corner of Teatralna Street (at present Jagiellońska) had only one entrance from the side of that street. In 1881 a great fire broke out in Ringtheater in Vienna. A few dozen of people died in it, as there was no emergency exit. After that tragic event it was decided in Cracow to build some makeshift "security porches" outside the theatre. In that way another entrance was constructed - the wooden stairs led directly from Szczepański Square to a "bridge" over the road. Those steps and porches, called devilish and looking fairly ugly, were pulled down in 1893. In the same year the new theatre in Świętego Ducha Square was opened and the old building started to fall into disrepair.
The building of The Old Theatre after reconstruction, around 1907
In the years 1903-1906 the ruined building of the former theatre was reconstructed by architects Taduesz Stryjeński and Franciszek Mączyński in the Art Nouveau style. They raised the edifice and crowned it with strongly protruded cornice under which a stucco frieze, designed by Józef Gardecki, was placed. The ground and the first floor of the building were only slightly changed; the main change applied to its interior. The redoubt room, which was on the ground floor from the side of Jagiellońska Street, was turned into the vestibule and the dressing rooms. The enormous stairs leading to the great concert hall were built there. The rest of the ground floor from that side housed a restaurant. On the first floor there were: the great foyer, the walking corridor, the smaller concert room, a buffet, a smoking room and a room for ladies. On the landing there were some studies belonging to the restaurant, reserved for meetings of exclusive groups. The second floor was occupied by The Conservatoire and Musical Society. The ground floor from the side of Szczepański Square was modified to suit some shops. The first one belonged to the optician Alfred Biasion (the company worked from 1801). In a leaflet advertising the shop we can read that "optical, physical and mathematical apparatus, surgical and orthopaedic tools, dressings, phonographs and record players as well as records, electrical devices, rubber stockings for varicose veins" could be obtained there and that it was "the main Galician store of human artificial eyes".
