A Survivor on Kościuszko Square Gets a New Purpose
For nearly nine decades, the compact circular pavilion known as Okrąglak has anchored Kościuszko Square in Wrocław. Built in June 1934 to a design by architect Paul Heim, the structure originally served as a tourist information point, selling guidebooks, airline tickets, and theater reservations. It survived the 1945 siege of Wrocław largely intact while much of the surrounding urban fabric was destroyed. Since then it has cycled through identities: bookstore, toy shop, press kiosk, tobacco outlet, and most recently a café. Now, as first reported by Pragmatika.media, the pavilion has opened as a Chleboteka bakery and coffee counter.
Ten Locations, One Milestone
The timing carries meaning for the brand. Chleboteka is marking its tenth year of operation in 2026, and the Okrąglak site is its tenth location. The project was a collaboration between Chleboteka and Wrocław design studio CUDO. Inside the compact space, the team had to fit a sales counter, bread and pastry display, coffee station, storage, and back-office functions without compromising the building's protected status. Every change to the exterior required coordination with the city's monument conservator.
Design That Listens to the Building
Rather than imposing a contrasting aesthetic, the designers took their cues directly from Okrąglak's own geometry. The circle and arch motifs that define the pavilion's exterior reappear in shelving, furniture profiles, ceiling details, and floor patterns inspired by historical interiors. Materials lean into the vocabulary of early twentieth-century modernism: veneer, ornamented glass, and steel. A suspended circular ceiling conceals ventilation and air conditioning while reinforcing the pavilion's round form. Warm lighting was chosen deliberately to complement the natural tones of bread and pastries and to make the small interior feel generous rather than cramped. Large windows dissolve the boundary between the counter and the square outside, and a circular bench installed around the pavilion's perimeter extends the experience into the public realm.
Heritage Constraints as Creative Fuel
The project is a useful case study in adaptive reuse under conservation rules. The listed status of Okrąglak meant the architects could not alter the exterior freely, so the design energy went inward, finding ways to honor the building's proportions and material logic rather than working against them. The result is a space where the heritage shell and the new commercial program reinforce each other rather than compete.
Why It Matters for Hosts
Independent accommodation operators in Wrocław's city center have a genuinely distinctive recommendation to offer guests: a working bakery inside a protected modernist landmark, steps from the main square. For hosts who curate local experience suggestions, Chleboteka at Okrąglak combines architectural history, local craft food, and a public square setting in a single stop. Pointing guests toward places with a legible story, rather than generic chains, is one of the most effective ways to generate the kind of word-of-mouth that fills calendars. It also signals to culturally curious travelers that the host knows the city beyond the obvious.
Details about the Chleboteka opening at Okrąglak were first reported by Pragmatika.media, written by Christina Butko, published August 25, 2026.
First reported by pragmatika.media.