OP ENHEIM House at Solny restored. It will contain the House for Culture

Data aktualizacji: 2018-07-10

It is a private cultural institution, which will function in the thoroughly restored tenement house bought by Viola Wojnowski, President of the OP ENHEIM Foundation, in 2013. In the six-storey building, there will be room for an art gallery, a concert hall, etc.

Return to excellence

‘This unique tenement house was one of the few that survived the war, so we can find many architectural details in the middle,’ explains Volkner Umlauft from the OP ENHEIM Foundation, stressing that Viola Wojnowski bought the house in 2013 not only in order to rebuild it and use it for new investments. ‘This house is like a walk through the Polish, German and Jewish history of the city – we also wanted to draw visitors’ attention to people who lived here,’ adds Umlauft. The exhibition dedicated to the history of the Oppenheim House will be open to visitors in front of Hotel Monopol from 18th July.

Herz Salon – the name commemorates the family that ran its famous shoe shop in the house

‘For the last five years, many works have been performed to restore the excellence of the Oppenheim House, and it turned out that a combination of tradition, history and modernity is possible,’ convinces Kama Wróbel, Artistic Director of the OP ENHEIM House for Culture, a new private cultural institution.

Artistic inauguration in October

The House for Culture will be opened in autumn, probably in the middle of October. Its activity will start with an exhibition by Mirosław Bałka – today one of the most highly appreciated Polish artists in the world, who has prepared works related to the history of the tenement house and Wroclaw. The curator will be Anda Rottenberg – the famous charismatic director of the Warsaw Zachęta Gallery.

Exhibition rooms will be arranged on the 1st floor

It is also likely that works from OP ENHEIM’s collection of recognised artists will be shown. The organisers do not want to announce their names yet. It is, however, known that the foundation will support resident artists who will stay in the tenement house at Plac Solny 4 for the time of their work.

Restored gem of architecture

Before its restoration, the house was noted, among others, for its characteristic dark green colour. After the completion of works, the conservator from Gorlitz decided that the colour of the Oppenheim House should be bright green and examined the shades of green that had been used in the Baroque period. A particularly enchanting item inside the house is a glazed outbuilding erected on the ruins of the former one, as there was no point in rebuilding it.

In the main building, not only original doors, but primarily old bricks (exposed in the cellar), fragments of original Baroque windows and fragments of polychrome have been left.

The terrace that is entered directly from the Herz Salon on the last floor / photo: Janusz Krzeszowski

In doorframes, mezuzot (small cases in which fragments of the Torah were held) have been found and submitted for renovation.

What is inside the Oppenheim House

  • Ground floor (catering – on the left side of the entrance – Bema Cafe, on the right – Fuzja na Solnym, after entering inside – the lobby, the corridor to the patio)
  • 1st floor (room for an art gallery)
  • 2nd and 3rd floor (office spaces for rent)
  • 4th floor (apartment for a resident artist of the OP ENHEIM Foundation)
  • 5th floor (Herz Salon – the name commemorates the family that ran a shoe shop in the house before the war – a place for concerts and meetings)
  • Outbuilding (catering on the ground floor; conference rooms on higher floors, the courtyard)
  • Cellar (it will contain, among others, the event cellar of Fuzja na Solnym)

 

Zdjecie Magdalena Talik

Magdalena Talik