New Town Market Square (Rynek Nowego Miasta)

Warsaw was distinguished from the New Town by its market square – in the new urban layout, it was 2.5 times larger than the old one. There is much evidence that it was the main reason for the creation of the New Town. It was not only more spacious and more accessible (it was located outside the tight city limits), but also covered by new legislation, and therefore could establish its own rules. Before World War II, the New Town Market Square was surrounded by tenement houses built throughout the 19th century, which resulted in considerable visual chaos – simple tenement houses “from a catalogue” stood next to buildings combining features of old architectural eras, tenement houses protruding above the roofs of other houses with eye-catching decorations were next to single-story buildings. This type of city did not interest architects of the mid-20th century.

Unlike Mariensztat, the New Town Square functioned well after the war as a public space - this was due to fashionable cafes, and above all the Wars cinema (1956–2004), liked for its ambitious and interesting program, but also its location in the vicinity of a little exposed and a somewhat mysterious square.

The New Town Market Square in Warsaw was built at the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries as the central point of the newly founded city. Initially, it had wooden buildings, but fires and destruction, including during the Swedish occupation, forced a gradual reconstruction in brick. In the 18th century, a new town hall was built, which was demolished in 1818 after the incorporation of the New Town into Warsaw. In the 19th century, the Market Square lost its original character when two frontages were transformed into streets. During World War II, the buildings were almost completely destroyed, and their reconstruction was completed in 1956. In the southwestern part of the square, there is a 19th-century cast iron well with the coat of arms of the New Town – a maiden with a unicorn.