The Guest Court () was a market hall in Warsaw, Poland, operating between 1841 and 1939. It was located in the neighbourhood of North Downtown, at the intersection of Rynkowa and Skórzana Streets and the Iron Gate Square.
History
The Guest Court was commissioned by the Administrative Council and designed by Jan Jakub Gay and Alfons Kropiwnicki. It was constructed in October 1841 next to the Iron Gate Square to help organize trade in the town of Wielopole. It was named after the Russian-language term gostiny dvor (Cyrylic: гостиный двор; original spelling: Гостинный дворъ), referring to numerous retail buildings in the Russian Empire. It had the shape of a isosceles triangle with curved corners and a circumference of around 280 m. It was built from bricks, with a zinc roof and arcades made with cast iron.Małgorzata Omilanowska: Świątynie handlu: Warszawska architektura komercyjna doby wielkomiejskiej; Warsaw: Instytut Sztuki Polskiej Akademii Nauk, 2004, p. 91. (in Polish)
The building contained 168 small stores and another 168 market stalls.Stefan Kieniewicz: Warszawa w latach 1795–1914. Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1976, p. 121. (in Polish)Franciszek Maksymilian Sobieszczański: Rys historyczno-statystyczny wzrostu i stanu miasta Warszawy. Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1974, p. 265. (in Polish) In 1916, the courtyard was placed under a glass roof.
It was destroyed in September 1939 in the arial bombings during the Siege of Warsaw. It was not reconstructed; materials salvaged from its ruins were used as scrap by the German military.
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