Post Office Building

For centuries, Wałcz had been an important transportation hub; major trade routes crossed here, and the postal route from Berlin to Königsberg—among others—ran through the town, heavily traveled by mail wagons, stagecoaches, and mounted messengers. The Wałcz post station was a place where travelers could not only change horses but also rest. Wałcz was incorporated into the horse-drawn mail network as early as the 18th century; a telegraph station operated here in 1864, and in 1901, the town was connected to the telephone network.

The current Wałcz post office building was constructed in 1885 of red ceramic brick. Its structure is highly complex; the main building is laid out in a shape resembling the letter “L,” with an annex designed on a trapezoidal-shaped plan adjoining it perpendicularly from the south, at the rear of the courtyard. The post office building has two stories, and its structure is interestingly complex; it resembles a small castle with two towers—a cylindrical, five-story tower on the south side and a rectangular, four-story tower on the west side. The five-story tower houses a staircase. The annex is a single-story structure. The differences in height between the various parts of the building are further emphasized by the varied shapes of the roof slopes.

The building’s facade is essentially in the eclectic style with predominantly neo-Gothic elements and is unplastered. The red-brick walls are adorned with clinker bricks, whose sheen and darker shade accentuate the division between the individual stories; cornices, window sills, and portal frames; double bands of clinker brick also encircle the individual floors at approximately 3/5 of the height of the first and second stories and halfway up the higher stories of the tower. The seven-axis façade is asymmetrical, accentuated by a triangular gable in the roof section. The roof surfaces, covered with two-tone ceramic tiles arranged in geometric patterns, also add to the building’s charm. The roof surfaces are further adorned with small windows topped with canopies crowned by pinnacles. The window and door openings vary in shape and size—on the first story, these are triforium windows with arched spandrels decorated with colorful mosaics alluding to the history of the postal service, along with small side columns made of glazed and unglazed clinker elements arranged alternately.  Equally beautiful postal-themed mosaics adorn selected areas of the building, and one can also spot bas-relief elements such as the postilion’s trumpet. The interior of the building is also designed in the same style, so it’s worth stepping inside to take in the interestingly decorated main hall. While there, you can purchase postcards of Wałcz and the region.

In keeping with the style of the time, the building was constructed primarily in the “Baltic Gothic” variant of the Neo-Gothic style. At the time, it was one of many Prussian post office buildings from the late 19th century erected along the Berlin–Königsberg route; however, it’s worth noting that this is one of the most interesting post office buildings in the region.