Great Market Square in Zamosc

The Great Market Square belongs to the most beautiful 16th century squares in Europe. In every frontage of the square there is a complex of arcaded houses that used to belong to Zamosc merchants. The square measures exactly 100 meters in both width and length. It is here that the two main axes of the old town cross. 

Square to the two smaller market squares: Solny and Wodny. The Market Square is surrounded by arcaded houses (it is a single complex of the arcaded houses survived in Poland in the entirety). The rhythm of their arcades gives regularity to the buildings when the decoration of facades gives variety (some of them are topped with reconstructed attics). A Zamosc house elevation scheme, established by Morando, was only skeletal, therefore up to the end of the 18th century it was possible to fill it with the forms specific for changing architectural styles. In the south frontage there are two model houses dated back to the end of the 16th century that imposed a type binding during the whole of the 17th century on the houses of the Market Square. In the north frontage, in the line of the Town Hall, there are more decorative Armenians’ houses, built in the second and third quarter of the 17th century (among others the Wilczek House). The importance of the Zamosc historical urban complex was appreciated by the Unesco that inscribed the Zamosc Old Town on the World Cultural Heritage List in 1992.