Prisons: The Architecture of Punishment

wiezienie_w_opolu_lubelskim_ag_23.jpg, default, Prison in Opole Lubelskie, photo by Iwona Burdzanowsk/AG

People imagine prisons in many different ways; however, they rarely think of architectural forms. We will take a look at old and contemporary Polish prisons and see to what extent their specific function determines their appearance and form.

According to the 2019 data published by the Central Board of the Prison Service, there are 39 detention centres, 81 prisons, 52 open prisons and 4 temporary accommodation units in Poland. No one goes to any of these 176 establishments for pleasure, and they are usually thought of with apprehension or reluctance. But one can also look at them from a slightly different perspective. Some of these facilities are noteworthy for their prominent presence in the city space and unique architecture, or they are a record of history and culture.

A Medieval Tower

Thumbnail — Wrocław, former city prison, the intersection of Nożownicza and Więzienna Street, photo by Krzysztof Kaniewski/Reporter/East News

The origins of the city prison in Wrocław date back to the mid-14th century. The first buildings of the complex serving to detain citizens considered criminals were erected on Więzienna Street, running down to the Market Square. It was from here that those sentenced to death were led out for public executions. According to the legend, Wit Stwosz himself served his sentence for forging a bill of exchange in that prison.

The oldest part of the prison complex is the three-storey brick tower with cells and guard rooms, erected in the first half of the 14th century. The growing city saw an increasing number of criminals, so more buildings were attached to the tower. At the beginning of the 16th century, the prison already had the form of a compact complex of buildings grouped around a courtyard. Although the facility changed its function between the late 18th and early 19th century (it became the seat of philanthropic organisations; today, it houses the Wrocław branch of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences), it has remained almost unchanged till today. The former city prison in Wrocław is one of the oldest public buildings preserved in Poland.

Wrocław has one more penitentiary facility of unconventional architecture. It is the detention centre on Świebodzka Street. Erected between 1845 and 1852, the building was constructed in a neo-Gothic style. The designer, an architect from Berlin, Karl Ferdinand von Busse, designed it in the shape of an isosceles cross, each of the four wings enclosing a quadrilateral avant-corps pierced by high windows. The brick building, which has the appearance of a defensive fortress, still stands out among the dense urban development of the city centre.

A Little Castle

Apparently, this hypocoristic name was used colloquially to describe the prison located on Łódzka Street in Kalisz. It was built in 1844 according to the design of the eminent architect of the time, Henryk Marconi, the creator of the European Hotel in Warsaw, St Anne’s Church in the capital city’s Wilanów, a sanatorium in Busko-Zdrój, and dozens of town halls (e.g. in Radom, Ciechanów, Góra Kalwaria and Koło). Constructed in a neo-Romanesque style, it may resemble a castle fortress – the main prison building is surrounded by a wall and has four towers at its corners. It is topped by an arcaded cornice, accompanied by a cubic office pavilion that resembles a small palace.

Before it closed in 2015, the Kalisz prison primarily served first-time offenders and had a semi-open unit. How the Kalisz prison operated and the extensive rehabilitation programme it implemented had already been defined when it was founded in the mid-19th century. This penitentiary is one of the buildings erected shortly after the prison reform carried out by the Prisons and Charitable Establishments Department of the Ministry of the Interior of the Congress Kingdom, for which the historian, writer and social activist Frederick Skarbek, the godfather of Fryderyk Chopin, was responsible.

The neo-Romanesque edifice, which has been on the register of historical monuments since 1968, has been left empty for the past few years. On 8 May 2020, the Kalisz authorities handed over the historic complex to the School of Criminology and Penitentiary Studies in Warsaw. Soon, the neo-Romanesque walls will house the students – future Prison Service officers.

A Neo-Gothic Fortress

The large complex of buildings at the Raciborz Prison resembles a gloomy castle. The association is not coincidental: erected between 1843 and 1851, it is the work of one of the students and followers of the famous painter and architect Karl Fridrich Schinkel, who readily derived inspiration from English Gothic architecture (this is perfectly demonstrated in his best-known realisation on Polish territory, the palace in Kamień Ząbkowicki).

Racibórz prison was founded on the plan of an isosceles cross, which is separated from the street by a long strip of administrative buildings. At the intersection of the cross arms, at the central point of the establishment, there is a 35-metre tall tower, visible from afar, topped with blanks. The brick building is surrounded by a wall, laid out on the plan of an irregular hexagon.

The Racibórz prison building has been listed in the register of historical monuments since 1992; the building still fulfils its original role; it is designed primarily for recidivist criminals and has a therapeutic ward for convicts suffering from mental disorders and mental retardation.

A Rotunda

The distinctive cylindrical silhouette of the Detention centre in Toruń is well known to locals and tourists visiting the capital of gingerbread. Located within the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Old Town, the circular building was erected in 1864, and the first inmates here were reportedly insurgents of the January Uprising. Originally a prison, the building was converted into a detention centre after the Second World War.

Like many prisons built in the mid-19th century, this one, too, was given neo-Gothic forms. For that building, however, a different inspiration is more important. Its characteristic shape and layout of the interior with open galleries and staircases is a reference to the Panopticon – the ideal prison described at the end of the 18th century by the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham. It is the only building of its kind in Poland.

In the Neighbourhood of Devil Boruta

The fortunes of historic prison buildings in Poland have unfolded in various ways. Many still serve their original function, while there is no concept for others. The buildings of the former prison complex in Łęczyca have had little luck. The prison here was closed down in 2006, and the building has been deteriorating since then. It has been on sale many times, but so far has not found a new owner.

A Dominican monastery once stood on its site. Rebuilt after a fire in the 17th century, it was turned into a prison by the Prussian authorities in 1799, a function it performed for more than 200 years. Due to its dire conditions, it was considered one of the toughest prisons in the country. It is said that in the 19th century, Maria Konopnicka’s husband served his sentence here for poker debts, and during martial law, political prisoners were interned here. The architecture of the Łęczyca prison was appreciated by film set designers – several films were shot here, including Vabank by Juliusz Machulski and Papusza by Krzysztof Krauze and Joanna Kos-Krauze.

A Prison Turned into a Museum

It is perhaps one of the most famous prisons in Poland – built by Russian authorities in 1902-1904 on Rakowiecka Street in Mokotów, Warsaw. This was, among others, a place of isolation for political prisoners. It was later used for a similar purpose by the Stalinist authorities after the Second World War and during martial law – when Solidarity activists were interrogated here.

From the 1920s, it served as a detention centre but was also a place where capital punishments were executed. The facility was permanently overcrowded – although built for 800 inmates, at its peak, in the early 1940s, more than 2,500 men and women were locked up inside.

More so than for its austere architecture, the Mokotów prison is known for important events in Polish history. It was here that Kazimierz Moczarski, a Home Army soldier, journalist and lawyer, and Jürgen Stroop, an SS officer, Nazi criminal and pacifier of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, were imprisoned in the same cell in 1949. The result of their meeting is the book Conversations with an Executioner, a poignant record of conversations between two prisoners written by Moczarski.

Marked by tragic events, the walls of the detention centre on Rakowiecka occasionally used to be the setting for films – it was here that Ryszard Bugajski’s touching picture Interrogation was filmed. In 2016, the Ministry of Justice decided to liquidate the Rakowiecka detention centre – the former prison buildings were turned into the Museum of the Cursed Soldiers and Political Prisoners of the People’s Republic of Poland.

Behind New Bars

Not all of Poland’s 176 penitentiary facilities are decades-old historic buildings. The most modern prison in Poland, and reportedly one of the most modern in Europe, is the facility built in 2009 in Opole Lubelskie. It consists of ten buildings scattered over an area of almost six hectares. Four of them are residential pavilions, while the others house, among others, a therapeutic ward and a primary as well as secondary school where inmates can study and, for example, pass their baccalaureate exams.

Thanks to an innovative, state-of-the-art electronic security system, the facility does not require guard towers and barbed-wire walls. The architecture of this building is much less oppressive than that of a traditional prison.

Translated from Polish by Agnieszka Mistur

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