The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage has rescinded protection for the Brutalist Forum Hotel in Krakow. The decision to include the Janusz Ingarden building in the register of monuments has been annulled. Will the icon of Krakow's architecture be demolished? And what are the reasons for the Culture Ministry's decision?
This is yet another act of dispute over the future of one of Krakow's most recognizable buildings. The brutalist hotel, designed by Janusz Ingarden, stood after 10 years of construction in 1988 on Maria Konopnicka Street in Krakow. Although it was once the most modern hotel building in Poland, it had been falling into disrepair for the past decades. The chance to save the Brutalist icon was supposed to be the Forum Hotel's entry in the register of monuments. After the building was placed on the register of monuments, the culture ministry overturned the decision, which had previously been appealed. What was the reason?
The Forum Hotel in Krakow
Photo: Blazej Pindor© CC BY-SA 3.0 | Wikimedia Commons
The Forum Hotel is not a monument
According to the LoveKrakow portal, on May 25, 2026, the Committee for the Protection of Monuments and Cultural Property received a letter from the Ministry of Culture, in which the ministry informs that the decision of the Malopolska Regional Monument Conservator to enter the Forum Hotel in the register of monuments was revoked.
The revocation was to be based on procedural issues, concerning, among other things, insufficient determination of the facts and ambiguous definition of the scope of conservation protection.
- reports krknews.pl.
The Culture Ministry's decision is as surprising as it is incomprehensible, given the building's stature, innovative design and the impact in which the Forum Hotel has shaped Krakow's skyline for nearly 40 years. If the decision of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage remains unchanged, the Forum Hotel - an icon of Brutalism - may disappear from Krakow forever.
What 's more, one of the most valuable plots of land in Krakow, located right on the Vistula River, is now in private hands. So probably no opera house, theater or other public building will be built there. The local zoning plan for the plot provides for commercial development, so another hotel could be built there.... another hotel.
Fortunately, the decision to revoke the entry of the Forum Hotel in the register of historic monuments is not final - the case is going back for reconsideration at the first instance. The decision to keep the Forum Hotel in the register of monuments will therefore be made again by the Malopolska Regional Monument Conservator.
The Forum Hotel in Krakow
photo: fiedler © CC BY-SA 3.0 | Wikimedia Commons
The fight for the Forum Hotel
The procedure to enter the Forum Hotel in the register of monuments was started by the Provincial Monument Conservator of Malopolska, Katarzyna Urbanska at the request of the Association of Polish Architects Krakow Branch in August 2024. The road to enter the Brutalist icon in the register was long, but thanks to the positive opinion of the National Heritage Institute, the Forum Hotel became a monument on October 9, 2025:
The uniqueness of the solutions used and, supported by the voice of a large group of architectural historians, the building's representativeness for the architecture of the Polish communist era, which is clearly a bygone era, gives rise to and obliges us to preserve it for future generations. It is in the public interest to protect the most valuable objects of each successive era as a witness to the changing times, tastes and design and implementation possibilities, for only in this way are we able tobe able to preserve the continuity of the cultural heritage of our country, in every century - and in the 20th century in particular - marked by many difficult, often devastating and tending to annihilate Poland, events and actions
- reads the opinion issued for the Forum Hotel by the National Heritage Institute.
The matter began to become complicated when the building's owner filed an appeal against the entry with the Ministry of Culture and Heritage. The Committee for the Protection of Monuments and Cultural Property then created a petition to the Ministry of Culture, which was signed by hundreds of Krakow residents. As it has just turned out, neither the petition nor the opinion of the National Heritage Institute was enough to unconditionally recognize the protection of the Forum Hotel. What will be next for the icon of brutalism?
