Later 19th- and 20th-century development of the town undoubtedly shows the growth of importance of Krosno. Outside the former Hungarian Gate the following buildings were erected: the court of justice edifice, the buildings of teachers’ training school, modern secondary school, “Sokół (Falcon) Society and the Loan Society. To the south, along Staszica, Grodzka and Lwowska Streets you can admire typical 19th-century residential villas and mansions frequently ornamented by Krosno artists. At the beginning of the 20th century the industrial areas were also developed: the glass manufacture plant complex, the industrial, steam-powered weaving plant and the “Wudeta” rubber production facility. Within the old town area the old shabby wooden “sheds” were replaced by two-storey tenement houses of the Art Nouveau ornamentations. The examples of such activities are the development of Ordynacka and Słowackiego Streets, the building of the „Zgoda” Town Dweller’ Association, the seat of the Grand Guild of Christian Tradesmen or the building of Michał Mięsowicz’s First Country Factory of Tower Clocks, which houses the Craft Museum today. The display rooms of the museum show the history of the town and its trades and businesses as exemplified by a unique collection of historical tools, products and archives from the 17th to 20th centuries.
 

Photograph by W. Turek 

The Building of the former Loan Society (ul. Kapucyńska 1)

The Building of the former Loan Society (Towarzystwo Zaliczkowe), founded in 1874 by Tytus Trzecieski, Karol Klobassa and Ignacy Łukasiewicz, is situated close to the Capuchin church near the monastery premises. It was built by Eugeniusz Ronka, a contractor, in the years 1893–1894, according to the design by Adolf Stapf.
This two-storey building is very impressive and shows some neo-Renaissance style features. The escarpment-facing elevation features a break, open in its upper part into the corner arcade loggias. Under the eaves there is a richly decorated graffito/ scratch-work frieze showing scenes connected with weaving, oil production and the portraits of the founders of the Loan Society. The frieze was made by Franciszek Daniszewski, a Krosno painter, in 1894; it was restored in 1952 by Stanisław Kochanek. Originally, apart from the Loan Society, the building housed a casino with a banquet room. After World War II there was a sweets production facility and now – after a major repair – a bank.
 

The Council Building
now: Town Office (ul. Staszica 2)

The Council Building was erected on the area overbuilt before. As a result of a public tender two lots were bought in 1898 and 1901, which were conveniently situated at the spot where all streets of the south part of the town met. The construction, according to Oskar Łoziński’s design, was commenced in 1901 and completed in 1904. As a result an impressive three-wing U-shaped edifice appeared. The front elevation with a higher and protruding break is covered with a separate roof. On the second storey, over a double row of windows, there are relief coats of arms: a crowned eagle in the middle, the Krosno coat of arms on the right and on the left: a four-field one with three crowns, chessboard, an eagle and an eagle. In the front door, the illuminating windows of the through-gate and the inner swing door have got grating made of forged steel with geometrical and plant ornamentation. Till 1975 the building was the seat of the Powiat Council.
The council hall was used as a ballroom. Until 1975, there was a post office here as well and later – the Province Office (1975–1990). After a major repair in the years 1991–93 the building is the seat of the Town Office and the Office Council.
In front of the building, there is a statue of Ignacy Łukasiewicz, sculptured by Jan Raszka, a sculptor; the monument was unveiled in October, 1932.
 

St. Joseph Orphanage – St. Joseph Nuns Congregation (ul. Grodzka 1)

The building is situated at Grodzka Street. It was built in the years 1909–1912. Thanks to the efforts of Father Zygmunt Gorazdowski, the founder of the convent, St. Joseph sisters arrived in Krosno from Lvov 1899. From the very beginning they started the orphanage. First, they bought a wooden house with a front garden. In 1909 they started building a new house situated in at the far end of the plot. The building was designed by Jan Sas-Zubrzycki. The front elevation, divided vertically, has a protruding break, closed on three sides and housing a chapel apse upstairs. In a semicircular niche, there is a figure of St. Joseph. The building is surrounded with a well-kept flower garden.
 

Court of Justice edifice (ul. Sienkiewicza 12)

The edifice of the Court of Justice was erected in the space between the town fortification walls. The site was purchased by the Austrio-Hungarian (Emperial and Royal) State Treasury in 1910. Its construction started henceforth in the same year and was completed in 1913. Stanisław Bergman, an engineer and a nephew of the famous Krosno painter of the same first name, was the designer. During the Great War the building was occupied by the General Brusiłow’s staff’s headquarters, later it became a field hospital and then, after the war operations ended, it returned to its original function. During World War II the building was used as a field hospital again. After the war the building became the Court of Justice again. It is a two-storey building on the open pentagon projection with an internal courtyard.

The facade is ornamented with a triple topping gable with surrounding volutes. In the centre of the topping there is a clock which was made in Krosno in the First Domestic/National Factory of Tower Clocks run by Michał Mięsowicz in Krosno.

The house where Jan Szczepanik lived

The building comes from 1826 and is situated near the Old Market Square on the corner of Szczepanika and Sienkiewicza Streets. In mid-19th century it housed the district office (starostwo powiatowe). Jan Szczepanik (1872–1926) spent the first years of his life in this house. He was famous as an inventor in weaving machinery, coloured photography and film. The fact was commemorated by a plaque, founded by the Krosno Land Lovers Association, designed by Stanisław Kochanek and placed on the building in 1972.

Photograph by M. Rymar 

Stanisław Bergman’s house (ul. Staszica 3)

In the years 1903-1904 a house was built for Stanisław Bergman, a Krosno painter. The house was designed by Jan Sas-Zubrzycki, an architect, and located at the walls of the Capuchin Fathers’ Monastery garden. This two-storey building with an elevated corner tower, which housed the artist’s studio, and the alternating belts of brick and plaster forming an interesting decoration of the ground floor is typical for the villa style commonly used on the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Some fragments of polychrome, painted by the artist himself, survived on the beams inside the building.

Teachers’ Training College for Men (Seminarium Nauczycielskie Męskie )
now: Lower Secondary School No 1

The first efforts to open the College started in 1891. After four years, on 9th June, 1895, a permit was issued to open a Teachers’ Training College in Krosno with Polish as the lecture language and mandatory Ukrainian language. In the beginning the classes were held in the Bishops’ Palace. The College moved into the new building in 1898. After a couple of years efforts were taken to build a boarding house (dormitory) next to the school. Both buildings were connected with a lacing in the 1960s.
 

Photograph by D. Piwka 

Lower-Secondary School  (Gimnazjum)
now: the Nicolaus Copernicus Secondary School of General Education No 1

Opposite, on the other side of the street, an impressive building of the Nicolaus Copernicus Secondary School is situated. The efforts to set up a gimnazjum in Krosno lasted for almost the entire 19th century. In 1880 a plan of General Development of Krosno was compiled with special attention paid to establishing a gimnazjum in the town, but only in 1900 a permit was given to set up a real (modern) school. The plans of the building developed by K. Kotłowski, a municipal architect, and a little different design by Bolesław Mańkowski come from 1902. Finally the design by Bolesław Mańkowski was adopted for implementation and the company of Fleischel, Jaworski and Łoziński were the contractors. The construction was carried out in the years 1904 – 1905.

The edifice was built of brick ornamented with some stone insertions, on the layout of an open polygon, with an inside courtyard. The front facade, being a corner elevation, features a central break crowned with a triple gable, accompanied with two pinnacles with a coat of arms cartouche in the gable. Originally, the building had a fence with spans forged in the workshop of Jan Zygmuntowicz, a Krosno craftsman. In the 1970s the stone underpinning was knocked down and the forged spans were used to fence the Craft Museum.

In 1973 a statue of Nicolaus Copernicus, by Stanisław Kochanek, a Krosno artist, was erected. 
 

Photograph by M. Rymar 

Building of the “Sokół”  Gymnastics Society
now: “Sokół” Cinema (ul. Grodzka 15)

Towarzystwo Gimnastyczne Sokół (“Sokół” (Falcon) Gymnastics Society) in Krosno was set up in 1892, as a link of a Lvov Gymnastics Society established in 1867. The two-storey brick „Sokół” building with a large gym on the first floor was erected in the years 1898 – 1899, probably according to the design of Franciszek Daniszewski, a painter. A cartouche with an image of a falcon was placed in the front elevation break with triangular crowning. During World War I the building housed a tavern of the local Farmers’ Association and in the interwar period there was a ballroom and a cinema. On the outbreak of war the „Sokół” Gymnastics Society in Krosno suspended its activity and the building became the property of the German General-Gouvernement and after the war it was taken over by the State Treasury. After the major repair and bricking up the windows of the entertainment hall, the building functions as „Sokół” cinema.
 

Former Home of Andrzej Lenik, an artist sculptor (ul. Lwowska 6)

Along the route to Sanok at the old Hungarian Route there is a house built for Andrzej Lenik, an artist sculptor. The house was designed in 1897 by Jan Sas – Zubrzycki, an architect. The building represents the style specific for suburban villas of the late 19th century. It was erected in two stages: first the dwelling part was built, and a corner tower was added after a few years and intended for the artist’s study. The front façade is ornamented with an entrance arcade loggia resting on a pillar decorated with a composite capital and a sculptured woman’s head. At the top, under the frton elevation eaves, there is a scratch-work/graffito decoration representing woman-personifications of fine arts with an accompanying sentence: “Ars longa vita brevis” (saying that art lasts long while human life is short) and the date 1898. The decoration was created by Andrzej Lenik and Seweryn Bieszczad.
 

Complex of the oldest buildings of the Glass Plant

The complex of buildings of the old glass plant in Krosno was erected in the years 1923-1924 by Towarzystwo Akcyjne "Polskie Huty Szkła" (Polish Glass Plants Joint-Stock Company) on the area owned by the Kaczkowski family. The plant industrial development was chaotic and the premises cramped. The buildings were almost completely ruined in 1944 and reconstructed shortly after the war.
The former Kaczkowski family palace, built in 1904, is surrounded by trees and situated in a small park. After World War II it housed the Culture Centre of the Krosno Glass Plant.

Building of the “Zgoda” Townspeople Society (ul. Piłsudskiego 14) 

The “Zgoda” (Accord) Townspeople Society was founded in 1891. Its statutory objective was to support the Christian town dwellers in their economic, social and cultural development. The society ran its own library, a magazines reading room, organized talks and an amateur theatre performances and concerts. From 1909 “Zgoda” had a new seat in its own building, built on a small plot adjacent to the Bishops’ Palace on one side and to a late-19th century tenement house on the other. It is a two-storey brick building pushed in between the older building development of the street, with a richly ornamented Art Nouveau façade. The entrance is situated in a narrow break crowned with a rounded gable with a cartouche with the Krosno coat of arms. On the right, between the windows there is Orzeł w koronie (a white eagle with a crown on its head, the national emblem of Poland) and the Lithuanian emblem of Pogoń (the Chase – a horseman at gallop). Almost from its beginning the building housed the Great Collective Guild of Christian Tradesmen in Krosno; after the war renamed into the Guild of Various Crafts/Trades (Cech Rzemiosł Różnych).