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.

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:
On the plot, before the current building, there was a tavern, managed by Emil Manthei
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.
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:
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

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

Gallery