Monuments and space: Exercises in political imagination

The main purpose of the interdisciplinary research described in the present paper is to determine the characteristics of ground environment changes in the Main Market Square area, and to compare these with analyses of metal artefacts. The elemental composition of metal artefacts and the degree of contamination of archaeological layers make it possible to consider both as specific indicators, including being geoindicators that are helpful in establishing the chronology of layers. Metal-artefact samples come from archaeological layers originating from different parts of the Great Weigh House. Layers were sampled, both in this region and also in a neighbouring area at the entrance to Bracka Street — trench A. They were collected from an area of archaeological excavations, which were carried out in the years 2005–2010, reaching down to a depth of 4 meters. All artefacts come primarily from cultural layers and structures - probably linked to workshops in the early medieval settlement which functioned in the area of the Main Market Square in the 12th and early 13th century. However, archaeological analysis of historical material allowed us to more precisely date metal arte-facts to the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, which was confirmed by analysis of the radiocarbon age of a sample from Room R of the Great Scales, from layer 109. Average concentrations (mg/kg) of Pb of 128454 and Cu of 108610 were determined in this sample to the AAS, which significantly exceeded of the most concentration values characteristic of the layers from the Great Weigh House.

Soil pollution indices conditioned by medieval metallurgical activity – A case study from Krakow (Poland)

"In the Footsteps of Kraków’s European Identity" The Rynek Underground Archaeological Exhibit

This paper opens the case Turku market square underground parking lot from the energy perspective. Also constructional and historical aspects are presented. Heavily populated city center has faced several challenges, such as intense traffic. Uncomfortable local tailpipe emissions and lack of parking spaces have decreased living conditions for the citizens and visitors. Therefore, total renovation of main market square of Turku was started in autumn 2018. Together with that, municipality should respond not only to primary needs, but also to national and global environmental targets. One of the new strategy objectives for Turku is being carbon-neutral city by 2029. Hence, project was based on large-scale renewable resources utilization for urban underground spaces. Research and analysis of possible technical solutions was made. Modern time is characterized by climate change and strong measures that need to be taken to stop the global warming. The heat, cold and electricity should be produced in a carbon neutral manner. This doesn’t exclude heated multilevel car parking facilities either. As the parking capacity grows and finding a free place is easier, a positive environmental effect is expected to be reached. The described underground parking lot in Turku is first of its kind in many ways: 1) Never before underground parking lot has dug up and constructed into clay-based soils in Finland, 2) it is probably the first zero carbon energy parking hall in Europe and 3) it has the biggest solar thermal energy storage in the world.

On February 5, 1994, a 120-mm mortar shell crashed into the main Market Square of Sarajevo, Bosnia. The explosion killed 66 and injured 206. The United States evacuated 71 of the injured to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, where the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Service evaluated 28 victims. This mass casualty evacuation underscores the role of Army physiatrists in humanitarian assistance and wartime casualty management. The author collected data regarding demographic factors, injury types, complications, and functional limitations. Seventeen of the 28 patients evaluated were injured during the market bombing, with the rest being injured before the bombing. Of 132 diagnoses in these 28 patients, 31 were fractures, 14 were amputations, 8 were peripheral neuropathies, 3 were spinal cord injuries, and 1 was a traumatic brain injury. Contractures and decubitus ulcers, both complications of immobility, accounted for 18 of the diagnoses. Ambulatory impairments were present in all of the patients, and 4 patients had major impairments in activities of daily living.

Micromorphological and physico-chemical analyses of cultural layers in the urban soil of a medieval city — A case study from Krakow, Poland

The need for accurate registration of underground objects in the 3D cadastre is becoming increasingly common throughout the world. Research studies conducted in this area mostly focus on objects related to transportation or other public utilities and services. However, in settlements with a long history, apart from new objects, there are also various historical objects underground. Such places are not fully discovered, and sometimes they are not even fully inventoried with surveying methods. The aim of this work therefore is to try to describe the possibility of introducing historical undergrounds to the real estate cadastre created for three dimensions, in case of its creation, and to check ground laser scanning as a method of measuring such objects in order to introduce them to the 3D cadastre. Considerations on the inclusion of underground historical objects into the three-dimensional cadastre database began with conceptual considerations. Their result is the elaboration of UML schemas describing relationships among 3D cadastre objects including underground objects. According to the authors, such underground objects should constitute a completely new class called ‘EGB_BuildingBlockUnderground3D’ and be part of the legal space of the entire building represented by the class ‘EGB_BuildingLegalSpace3D’ (the prefix EGB is an acronym of Polish cadastre name ‘Ewidencja Gruntów i Budynków’; in English, it stands for ‘Land and Building Cadastre’). In order to verify in practice the possibility of introducing historical underground objects into the 3D cadastre database, the inventory of the Underground Tourist Route in Rzeszów (Poland) was used. This route consists of a network of underground passageways and cellars built between the 14th and 18th centuries. The measurement was carried out with the application of the Faro Focus 3D terrestrial laser scanner. The underground inventory showed that at the time the current cadastre of land and buildings in Rzeszów was being founded, the boundaries of the cadastral parcels were established without knowing the location of the underground passageways under the Main Market Square. This resulted in a situation in which the objects located underground became parts of more than one cadastral parcel. If a 3D cadastre is created, such a situation must of course be recorded accordingly. The article proposes solutions for such situations.

Carrot ( Daucus carota L.) in Medieval Kraków (S. Poland): a cultivated form?

„I will survive” – Representation of the Holocaust in Contemporary Art Jane Korman, a Jewish artist, filmed the video „Dancing Auschwitz” on a trip to former concentration camps with her three children and her father, Adolek Kohn, who is a Holocaust survivor. The film shows three generations of an Jewish family dancing to the Gloria Gaynor song “I Will Survive” in front of Holocaust land marks in Poland, including infamous rail tracks and “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign and a memorial in Łódź, where Adolek Kohn and his wife spent most of his youth during World War II. This video is a demonstration of the will to survive. Moreover, Korman’film shows other places in Poland like The Main Market Square in Kraków, a Polish synagogue or one of the bus station from eastern Poland. These places may represent the sites and the traces of the History in the contemporary Polish reality which has been radically transformed after Auschwitz. Memories are a way to remain connected to the past. The great power of the images, the clichés of the unimaginable trauma of the Holocaust, is still in our imagination and in the landscape of Polish cities. In my presentation I will not only try to explain the abovementioned case but I will focus also on some others examples of the idea. One of the Polish projects that bring about associations with the Holocaust and the memory of Nazi camps is „Swimming Pool” („Pływalnia”, 2003) by Rafał Jakubowicz (projection, two videos, postcard). By projecting the Hebrew equivalent of the word „swimming pool” on the wall of the former synagogue (in 1940 the Nazis converted synagogue into a swimming pool for the Wehrmacht), the artist managed to reactivate this place, to revive its memory and transform it into a living monument. In his video, entitled „Swimming Pool”(13 min.), Jakubowicz is showing the interior of the building that provokes the associations with the concentration camps.

Urban sprawl is one of the biggest problems of the contemporary spatial planning. Since the 20th century there has been discussions amongst theoreticians and practitioners, devoted to delimitation of urban functional areas, agglomerations, or metropolises. The example of Cracow demonstrates that the attention of researchers should be also directed to the accuracy of city limits. A comparative analysis of the functional and spatial structure of Cracow and of its northern suburbs demonstrated that the rural areas examined exhibit a much higher degree of urbanity than – for example – a considerable part of Nowa Huta, which was incorporated to the city in 1951. Building permit decisions issued in Cracow in the period 2014-2016 regarding residential buildings illustrate uniform development, with the exclusion of the western wedge of green areas and the eastern industrial areas. Multi-family investments are located within the radius of ca. 6 km from the Main Market Square. One-family buildings are developed within the ring between the 6th and 10th km. This ring goes beyond the administrative limits of the city only towards the north (communes of Zielonki, Wielka Wieś, and Michałowice), which entails a question regarding the rationality of the city limits of today. Shortage of potable water hindered the development of northern outskirts of Cracow in the mid-20th century. The launch of a new water main in 1974 overcame this development obstacle. Over subsequent decades the priority of protection of soils of a high valuation class against land development grew weaker. After the economic transformation, due the development of local governments the policy relating to the areas discussed was directed towards liberal transformations of arable lands into para-urban structure. New residents live an urban lifestyle, taking advantage of the social infrastructure and services offered by the city. The absurd northern city limit, present there for nearly three decades now, has not interrupted the natural process of the city development, but it has prevented a rational spatial policy consistent with the idea of balancing development.

The oxygen isotope ratio (δ18O) in tissues is the outcome of both climatic and geographical factors in a given individual’s place of abode, as well as the physiology and metabolism of his organism. During an individual’s life, various rates and intensities of physiological and metabolic processes are observable in the organism, also within the bone tissue. The aim of this study is to verify whether involutional changes occurring as a result of the organism’s ageing have a significant impact on δ18O determined in the bone tissue. The material used for analysis was fragments of the long bones taken from 65 people, (11 children and 54 adults), whose remains had been uncovered at the early mediaeval (X–XI century) cemetery located at the Main Market Square in Kraków (Poland). The correlation analysis between δ18O of bone tissue and an individual’s age shows that up to 40 years of age, such a relationship does not exist in both, males and females. However, the conducted correlation analysis prompted the observation that after 40 years of life, δ18O in bone tissue significantly drops as females increase in age. Results suggest that the δ18O in bone tissue among older people may be the outcome not only of environmental factors but also involutional changes in bone linked to an organism’s ageing. Therefore, the interpretation of δ18O results relating to the description of the origin and migrations of older individuals should be treated with caution.

In this chapter, we discuss conditions framing the interfaith dialogue in Poland as they appear in their materialized, localized and discursive dimensions. Drawing on Waldenfels (2011), we perceive the interreligious dialogue as an in-between place: a liminal landscape that simultaneously connects and separates. The main focus of our analysis is the socially and culturally situated dialogue between the Catholic Church – Poland’s dominant religious institution – and Islam striving for inclusion and visibility in the local settings. The case study we present is the celebration of the Day of Islam in the Catholic Church in the city of Krakow. In particular, we concentrate on the public controversy surrounding the poster that advertised the event in 2020. The poster depicts one of the important landmarks of the city – the symbol-laden Saint Mary’s Basilica in the Main Market Square surrounded by imagined architectural objects that emblematize Muslim presence (mosques and minarets). In the analysis of these references to space and material presence of religion in Krakow’s landscape, we juxtapose the symbolic content of the poster with the discursive practices employed to trap Muslims into a realm of the alien and reflect on the existing dialogue agenda affected by the current rise of the right-wing populism.

The construction and reconstruction of town halls in the cities of the Kingdom of Poland until the end of the 18th century (Summary) The article, which also takes into account the issues relating to the medieval town halls in Silesia, Western Pomerania and the Teutonic State, is an attempt at synthesizing the existing research. The following aspects have been analysed: the location of the town hall within the urban complex and the transformation of the forms and symbols of both its architecture and design. Town halls came into existence as a consequence of – although not necessarily immediately – founding towns based on German Law and the establishment of municipal authorities. The relationship between the town halls and urban planning varied. The town hall could be located along the front of the main market square (Wieliczka in Malopolska) or a street – a place functioning as the market square (evolution of the urban context in the town hall in Gdansk), sometimes (due to the location of the house of the municipal councillor?) outside the market place (originally in Nowy Sącz). Its location along the front of the market square in Early Modern towns could have both an aesthetic and symbolic aspect (Zamośc). The evolution of the central-market square block, with the town hall and stalls was very characteristic of medieval towns and infl uenced the Malopolska region (Krakow) and Wielkopolska region (Poznan) from Silesia (Wroclaw, Świdnica, Legnica). In Early Modern private towns, from the Renaissance era (Glowow) to the late Baroque (Siedlce), the town hall was often situated in a place which emphasized the axes of the urban layout. The tower was usually an important element in the architecture of the oldest town hall buildings (13th/14th century). It emphasized the town’s autonomy and, similarly to the adjacent hall, was derived from the architecture of feudal castles (Wroclaw, Krakow). The tower also emerged as the oldest element of the central-market square block in many Silesian towns, and was modelled on the beffrois (Bruges). The form of a tower came to the Malopolska region in the 14th century (the oldest town hall in Sandomierz) and Ruthenia (Krosno, Kamieniec Podolski). Two-naved halls which alluded to the palatium (Poznan), were particularly frequent in Western Pomerania (Stargard, Paslek, Kamien Pomorski, Chojnice, Szczecin). By contrast to the simple, purely functional architectural forms of the oldest town halls, in the lands of the Teutonic knights fi ne details were present as early as in the early 14th century (Chelmno). The richness of the forms and designs of the Pomeranian town halls, with Torun at the forefront (which Jan Dlugosz noticed) had an impact on the late Gothic town halls in the Malopolska region (reconstruction of the Krakow town hall, 1454). The transfer of the offi cial functions from the ground floor of the town hall to the Artus Court could also relate to Krakow. Bohemian models played a large role in the shaping of representative architecture, symbolism and the iconographic programme of the late Gothic town halls in Silesia (15th/16th century) – e.g. the relationship between the Ladislaus Room in Hradcany and the Lwowek town hall. In Early Modern times the “bipolarity” of architectural designs in Polish lands, which were inspired by ideas coming both from Italy and the Netherlands is most noticeable on examples in the Malopolska region, notably Krakow (attics surmounting the buildings) and Pomerania, notably Gdansk, where the designs by masters from the Netherlands were subordinated to erudite, complicated political “treaties”. In the Wielkopolska region the Mannerist style inspired by Northern Italian (Serlian) designs was at the forefront as can be seen in the reconstruction of Poznan’s town hall. In the era of urban decline in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (2 nd half of the 17th/18th century) anachronistic, medieval designs continued to be used (Stary Sącz); private towns were an exception (e.g. Leszno and Buchacz owned by the Leszczynski family), which were able to afford magnificent constructions. The architecture and design of town halls refl ect the ambitions as well as the condition of the bourgeoisie and therefore the phenomena which took various forms in the different historical periods and regions. Future research should put special emphasis on tracing the “migration” of designs and ideas from the magnifi cent urban centres of the West through the main Polish cities to provincial towns.

Comprehensive assessment of heavy metal pollution in topsoil of historical urban park on an example of the Planty Park in Krakow (Poland)

In February 1930, Eugene Pittard, the director of the ethnological museum in Geneva, sought to expand his museum’s collections in an unusual manner. Instead of sponsoring an expedition to Africa or acquiring objects from former missionaries, instead of buying from established dealers in ethnographic specimens or the newer galleries that specialized in l’art negre, Pittard wrote to an African man in Africa, a Bamum man named Mose Yeyap (Pittard 1930) (Fig. 1).1 Yeyap was the head of the relatively new artisanat in Foumban, a school and artists’ cooperative founded in 1927, and he was known as a key figure for collectors seeking to acquire works of art from the Bamum kingdom. Pittard’s letter explained that he “would like to assemble ... as true a picture as possible of the population of which you are a part, that is to say of the material life of this population. I am sending you by the same post [a list of] the kinds of things that would be the most interesting to have” (Pittard 1930). Pittard explained pointedly, “I insist on one point: Our intent is to have the oldest objects; those which have not been subjected to European influence.” He then listed for Yeyap the kinds of objects he had in mind: “sculpted wood masks, statues, sculpted horns, etc. ... sculpted drums with carved animals or other designs. Miss Debarge [a physician known both to Pittard and Yeyap] showed me drawings on paper that you made of sculptures. Is it possible to have these sculptures themselves?” (Pittard 1930). Pittard’s letter, of course, epitomizes how European arrogance and fantasy informed the collection of African art in the first decades of the twentieth century. Pittard condescendingly and absurdly schooled Yeyap about Yeyap’s own culture and, by privileging his desire for “the oldest objects,” those supposedly untouched by “European influence,” Pittard revealed his adherence to the chimerical “ideal” of African cultures as isolated in time and space. In a fascinating twist, however, we also have Yeyap’s response to Pittard. Yeyap answered back: