Accesibility

The 45th anniversary of Kraków being listed as one of UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites is the perfect opportunity to look back at how far our city has travelled since 1978. It also allows us to answer the question whether present-day Kraków is as ambitiously self-aware as it was almost half a century ago.

In 1844, while moving one of the bookcases in the Jagiellonian Library, an inconspicuous sheet of paper slipped to the ground. Densely printed on one side in Gothic characters, it turned out to be the oldest known print in Poland.

“A Guide to the Architecture of 20th Century Krakow” can be understood as an invitation to discover “our own” Krakow. The one outside the tourist brochures, where the daily life of its inhabitants actually takes place.

The European Commission and Europa Nostra today announced the winners of the European Heritage Award / Europa Nostra Award 2023. This year, 30 exceptional heritage achievements from a total of 21 countries were honoured with this highest European award. This year’s laureates in the Conservation category include the Veit Stoss Altarpiece at St Mary’s Basilica in Krakow.

There is much more than a geographical fact hidden in the simple observation that Krakow is a similar distance from Warsaw as it is from three other Central European capitals – Vienna, Budapest and Bratislava.

Could the antique-book shop in the old pharmacy on Zwierzyniec be a place as worthy of mention in guidebooks as the nearby Talowski townhouses, or the annual indulgence at Emaus?