An icon of Brutalism, one of Krakow's most distinctive buildings will be under protection! On October 9, 2025, after a long procedure, Katarzyna Urbanska, the Malopolska Regional Conservator of Monuments, announced that the Forum Hotel will be entered in the register of monuments. What was key to making this decision?
The Forum Hotel, designed by Janusz Ingarden and opened to guests in 1988, is one of the most characteristic elements of Krakow's architectural skyline. As a relatively young building, it has so far not been under conservation protection. However, it looks like this state of affairs is about to change and the Forum Hotel will become a monument. The procedure started in August 2024 on an application submitted by the Association of Polish Architects, Krakow Branch, is just coming to an end.
The Forum Hotel in the register of monuments - the brutalist body of the building designed by Janusz Ingarden
Photo: Fiedler © CC BY SA 3.0 | Wikimedia Commons
The Forum Hotel in Krakow will be a monument
A prerequisite for entering the building into the register of monuments was a recommendation issued in the course of an expert opinion conducted by the National Heritage Institute. Fragments of the NID's opinion on the Forum Hotel were presented by Piotr Tymczak in the pages of Gazeta Krakowska at the end of September this year. As we can read, the National Heritage Institute states that:
The uniqueness of the applied solutions and, supported by the voice of a large group of architectural historians, the representativeness of the building for the architecture of the Polish People's Republic era, which is clearly a bygone era, gives rise to and obliges 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 toable 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
As can be read in the summary of the opinion of the National Heritage Institute on the recognition of the Forum Hotel as a monument:
In view of the presented findings, the inclusion of the former Forum Hotel in the conservation protection through entry in the register of monuments does not raise any doubts, and even becomes a necessity
brutalist icon on the register
As Radio Krakow reported, due to the presentation of a positive opinion from the National Heritage Institute, Katarzyna Urbanska, Malopolska Voivodeship Conservator of Monuments, a decision has been made to enter it in the register, which Malopolska WUOZ intends to announce on October 10, 2025.
This does not mean that we will want a hotel to continue to operate there. We are focusing on the exterior form, which is valuable as a Brutalist style. A decision should be issued to renovate the façade, to clean up the massing of the building from additional elements that have been created by alterations, additions and extensions
- explains Malopolska Regional Monument Conservator Katarzyna Urbanska in an interview with Radio Krakow.
The Amathus investment fund remains the owner of the hotel. As we read in the Radio Krakow communiqué, plans for the Forum Hotel include first and foremost issuing a decision ordering the renovation of the now heavily damaged, partially vegetation-covered facade. As we read in the RK article, it is primarily the façade that will be the part of the building on which the Forum Hotel's preservation will focus. The Malopolska Regional Monument Conservator's Office also promises to clean up the building's massing of all elements that have appeared at the Forum Hotel as a result of later alterations and renovations. The listing itself marks another important chapter in the history of preserving the architectural heritage of modernism.
