A corner townhouse of 1898 on Grunwaldzki Square, with a pharmacy of 1900 and the preserved fittings of its dispensing room.
The August Mintz Townhouse stands on the corner of Aleja Papieża Jana Pawła II and Śląska Street, right by Grunwaldzki Square. It is an example of the prewar eclectic development of the square, and on the ground floor there is a pharmacy with fittings preserved from more than a hundred years ago.
It was designed by Georg Sonnenstuhl, and the building work was carried out around 1898 for August Mintz. The townhouse has five storeys, the last of which is hidden in the roof. The front facing the square is formed by a projection covering the four central axes, and the side wings have thirteen axes each. At the level of the first and second floors the facade is accented by oriel windows, with balconies between and above them.
The ground floor is clad in stone slabs and opened up with large shop windows with arched lintels. In the gable of the projection, between putti, is a coat of arms with a compass and a set square and the inscription “A. D. 1898”. Some of the former ornaments have not survived: the gables, the sculptures in the niches of the projection and the attic dormers are missing, having disappeared during or after the war.
In 1900 the premises on the square side were taken by a pharmacy. Its most important room is the dispensing room: the walls and ceiling are finished with wooden panelling, and along the walls stands a cabinet decorated with plant motifs, with a clock and mirrored back panels. In 1928 a clock was installed between the shop windows in the projection, its mechanism controlled by a second clock placed at the back of the pharmacy. After the war a new pharmacy was opened in the same premises, and most of the prewar fittings have survived to this day.
The townhouse was entered in the heritage register in 1977, and the pharmacy interior itself was entered in the register as early as 1976.
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