Dom Buta

Dom Buta is a corner townhouse at Piotrkowska 98, with origins dating back to the 1830s. Before the brick building was erected here, the plot was occupied by a wooden structure with an inn, and later housed a pharmacy for several decades.

Wooden house and inn

The plot at today's number 98 was taken over in 1832 by weaver Jan Gottlieb Wüstmann, who built a wooden house on the corner and opened an inn inside. Thirteen years later, in 1845, the property was purchased by physician August Potempa, born in 1808. Potempa erected a brick corner house with a tiled roof and a shop space intended for a pharmacy.

August Potempa, city surgeon

At the end of the 1830s, August Potempa served as city surgeon, and in 1846 became the first director of the municipal Saint Alexander Hospital, which opened at that time on Rynek Fabryczny [Factory Square], in the place where the Higher Seminary of the Clergy now stands on ulica świętego Stanisława Kostki. The hospital itself was located in a different part of the city, not in the building at Piotrkowska 98. Potempa died in 1848 without children, after which the property passed to his sister Amalia and her husband Adolf Gritschke.

Pharmacy at the corner of Piotrkowska

From around 1849, a pharmacy run by Ignacy Kieszczyński operated in the front house, and in the courtyard, in a brick cottage, he set up a laboratory that manufactured medicines for Saint Alexander Hospital under the licence he held. In the 1850s, the pharmacy belonged to Julius Knoll, and later to Marceli Kuźnicki. In the first half of the 1870s, Kuźnicki moved it to the other side of the street, to the house of Andrew Jezierski at Piotrkowska 95.

Piotrkowska 98 today

The corner building stands in dense development along the middle section of the pedestrian street, between Fiszela Wajkselficza Townhouse and Siemensa Townhouse. A few numbers further stands Alojzy Balle Townhouse, and on the opposite side of the street Gustaw Goldblum Townhouse.

Practical information

• Address: Piotrkowska 98, Łódź
• Access: on foot or by tram to stops on ulica Piotrkowska or aleja Kościuszki
• What to expect: a corner townhouse with a brick façade from before 1845, set within the dense row of buildings along the pedestrian street