Ратуша Town Hall

Rating 8110

The countdown of the Polish magistrate's building begins with the joyous event of granting Kamyanets-Podilsky, albeit not in full, the Magdeburg Law in 1374, which included the city's right to form local self-government bodies (magistrates). Confirmation of previously obtained and additional privileges of Magdeburg law, the city received in 1432 according to the charter of Polish King Wladyslaw II Jagiello (1351-1434). And two years later, Kamyanets became a royal city, gaining even more rights, as a result of which the magistrate's building became the center not only of the city but also of the districts, sheltering the divided Polish, Russian and Armenian magistrates.
The building served as an administrative center until 1672, when the city was, according to the honorary surrender, given to the Turks during the Turkish-Polish War (1672-1676), undergoing significant architectural changes at the entrance to the 1616 reconstruction to eliminate the effects of fire. However, 27 years later, in 1699, under the terms of the Peace of Karlovy Vary, the Polish authorities returned to Kamyanets, settling again within the walls of the magistrate's building. The large-scale reconstruction of the building, carried out in 1754 at the expense of the voivodship, left on the memorial plaque of the facade a commemorative inscription and the coat of arms of the city - the shining golden sun with twelve rays.

In 1793, Kamianets-Podilskyi was officially annexed to the Russian Empire, never to return to Poland.
After the fires of 1817 and 1850, the town hall building was restored, changing the style of the building in the spirit of the times, but leaving the appointment - the magistrate - the concentration of administrative (council) and legal (court) power of the city, which remained until 1870.

The new purpose of the former magistrate's building (1870) was to serve as a police station with pre-trial detention cells in the basement. World War II brought new misfortunes to the town hall building - its premises were destroyed, the outer walls were damaged, the bells were dropped. But the oblivion did not last long: the appearance of the house was restored in 1952-1956. Eleven years later, in 1967, the building of the former Polish magistrate was transferred to the Kamyanets-Podilsky Historical Museum-Reserve, which houses an art department with works by Podillya masters on the ground floor and world-renowned painters on the second floor.
In addition, the museum's exposition was constantly replenished with exhibits of traveling exhibitions from the funds of the Museum of Oriental Arts, the Hermitage and the reserves of other museums of the Ministry of Culture. Another reconstruction found the town hall building in 1981, during which the clock face was found at the level of the fourth tier of the bell tower, which decorated the tower from the beginning.

The original building of the Polish Magistrate included only a two-story building with a ten-room first and nine-room second floors and a basement, which probably consists of nine rooms, of which only three have been cleared. The four-sided octagonal bell tower stood at a distance of 3 m from it until the reconstruction in 1616, when the two buildings were united into a single architectural ensemble.
After repeated reconstructions, fires and restorations, the appearance of the Town Hall building can no longer be clearly classified in terms of classical architecture - it has Baroque, Empire and Renaissance elements.

In 2018, a memorial plaque in honor of the architect and General Jan de Witte was installed on the facade of the town hall.