Abstract
In 1901, a brick chapel was built near the Church of St. Casimir the Prince in Cracow, which was a monastic church of the reformed congregation of the Order of Friars Minor. The decision was motivated by the need to establish a sanctuary for the painting of Christ the Sorrowful, which had been associated with the previous church of the reformed congregation and placed in a separate chapel of the monastery’s ambulatory. Due to the spreading worship of this image, the new chapel became the church’s most significant section, as expressed by its architectural form that is one of the more interesting examples of Romanesque Revival architecture in Cracow and a result of the blending of the Revival style layout into the church’s Baroque silhouette. Due to utilitarian reasons, a section of the chapel was also adapted to act as a boiler room intended to heat the entire church. The aim of the study is the analysis of the principles of shaping the form of a chapel built in direct contact with the existing structure. The main basis of historical research and conclusions were archival materials as well as contemporary and past publications. The auxiliary element was a 3D reconstruction of the original form of the chapel, made on the basis of an architectural inventory and historical data. The research has shown that the chapel’s architecture is the result of efforts to formally coherent with the historic architecture of the surroundings, but expressed in an innovative Romanesque Revival style.
Jacek Czechowicz