Museum of Bourgeois Art in Wroclaw (Old Town Hall)
Muzeum Sztuki Mieszczańskiej (Stary Ratusz)
60 m from the Market Square in Wroclaw See museums near the Market Square in Wroclaw
- Tours in English: Groups can book a guided tour in Polish or in a foreign language; the fee is on the museum's price list.
- Guided tours are for groups of up to 40 people; agree the date at least three weeks ahead at 71 391 69 40 ext. 113.
- The main entrance is on the side of the Old Town Hall with the monument of Aleksander Fredro.
- Six steps with handrails lead to the main entrance.
- The interiors are partly adapted for visitors with mobility disabilities.
Location
What to expect
The Museum of Bourgeois Art in Wroclaw is above all a tour of the inside of the Old Town Hall: the late Gothic building on the Market Square that the Polish Wikipedia counts among the best-preserved historic town halls in Poland. According to the same Wikipedia, the town hall is in a sense the main exhibit of the museum, a branch of the Wroclaw City Museum (Muzeum Miejskie Wrocławia).
The interiors are what matters most. The museum singles out the Great Hall (Sala Wielka) with its net vault, and next to it the Princes’ Hall (Sala Książęca), the Council Elder’s Room (Izba Seniora Rady), the Council Hall (Sala Rady) and the Council Chancellery (Kancelaria Rady). In the Burghers’ Hall (Sala Mieszczańska), the oldest part of the town hall, stand marble busts of eminent figures connected with Wroclaw.
The collections are about Wroclaw’s craft workshops and artists, from the earliest times to the present. Visitors rate the museum very highly: on Google Maps it has 4.7 out of 5 from 5,560 reviews (read on 25 October 2026).
Who it suits: anyone interested in Gothic architecture and old Wroclaw, because the route leads through the historic rooms of the town hall, from the Great Hall to the Council Hall. It is a good choice for a first visit to the city if you want to see the inside of the building you pass on the Market Square anyway.
Who should skip it: wheelchair users should phone the ticket desk before a visit, because six steps with handrails lead to the main entrance and the interiors are only partly adapted. If you are mainly looking for the story of the city’s whole history, you will find it at the Historical Museum in the Royal Palace , another branch of the Wroclaw City Museum, with the exhibition “1000 Years of Wroclaw”.
How long: allow about an hour. The estimate rests on the number of interiors on the route: the five rooms the museum names and the Burghers’ Hall with its busts.
Tips
- The entrance by the Fredro monument. The main entrance is on the side of the town hall where the monument of Aleksander Fredro stands; the museum repeats this in its posts about exhibitions too.
- Check the hours before you set out. The museum asks visitors to check regularly for changes to the opening hours of the Old Town Hall, as they may change. It currently gives: Mon-Tue: closed, Wed-Sat: 11:00-17:00, Sun: 10:00-18:00.
- One day without a ticket. In posts from August and September 2026 the Wroclaw City Museum announces that once a week the permanent exhibitions at all its sites, the Old Town Hall included, can be visited without a ticket: free admission on Thursdays.
- Family and group tickets. The family ticket is for at most two adults with one to five minors, and the group ticket for groups of more than 20 people; the museum’s price list gives the prices of both.
- Who gets a concession. The reduced ticket is for, among others, people up to 18, students up to 26, doctoral students, pensioners with a valid card, and people with disabilities and their carers. Reduced ticket price: see the practical box.
- Book a guided tour in advance. Groups of up to 40 people can book a guided tour in Polish or in a foreign language. The date must be agreed at least three weeks ahead, at 71 391 69 40 ext. 113.
- Nasz Wrocław. The museum is a partner of the city’s Nasz Wrocław programme; the city’s programme page gives the discounts for Status Podatnika (Taxpayer Status) and Status MAX.
Getting there
- Address: Stary Ratusz, Rynek, 50-107 Wrocław.
- Tram and bus: according to the timetable in the open data of Wroclaw City Hall (Urząd Miejski Wrocławia), the nearest stop is “Oławska” (about 186 m in a straight line; tram 7). A little further are “Świdnicka” (about 240 m; trams 3, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 18, buses 106, 602 and K, at night line 245) and “Zamkowa” (about 242 m; trams 3, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 18).
- Other stops: according to the same timetable, “Wita Stwosza” (about 254 m; tram 7), “Świdnicka (Dom Europy)” (about 331 m; trams 7 and 18) and “Rynek” (about 357 m; trams 3, 6, 7, 10, 12, 13, 18 and 24, buses 103, 132, 142 and K). “Rynek” has the most lines of the nearby stops.
Background
The rooms you walk through belong to the Gothic town hall, whose beginnings the English Wikipedia places in the 13th century; it was built, it says, by the city’s then mostly German population. Today it is, in its words, one of the main landmarks of Wroclaw.
The museum puts it more strongly. As it writes, it is housed in the Old Town Hall, “the most important building in Wroclaw and one of the most outstanding monuments of late Gothic secular architecture in Europe”.
The Museum of Bourgeois Art, which works in the town hall today, is a branch of the Wroclaw City Museum, a municipal cultural institution founded on 1 January 2000. According to Gazeta Wrocławska in June 2026, the branch is headed by the curator Magdalena Szmida-Półbratek. The institution’s management is based at ul. Sukiennice 14/15; this address is not the entrance to the town hall.