A railway station in a manor style, erected to the design of architects working for the architectural section of the Road Department of the Warsaw Directorate, supervised by Bronisław Brochowicz-Rogoyski, followed by architect Romuald Miller, is an example of a high-class utility architecture of the inter-war period. It belongs to a group of similar buildings erected in place of railway facilities destroyed during World War I. The feature is distinctive for its functionality.

History

The currently functioning railway station in Pruszków was one of the similar features erected in the years 1918-1924 as part of the plan for renovating the railway infrastructure after damages of World War I. A small railway station in this town emerged in the years 1845-1846 on the northern side of the tracks of the first railway line on the territory of the Kingdom of Poland, the so-called Warsaw-Vienna Railway, under construction at that time. A larger, brick station appeared in 1888 on the southern side of the tracks. It was destroyed in 1914 as a result of acts of war.

The current building, completed around 1924, used foundations or walls of the previous structure, as in many similar cases. Auxiliary buildings such as a water tower, forge, storage cells and warehouses were nearby. In the 1930's the station building obtained a platform shelter over the entrance to the underpass in the north. The station survived World War II, but the water tower and auxiliary buildings suffered partial damage. The surviving buildings were renovated after 1945. The station building has survived to our times only with slight alterations of the interior. Initially, the plaster of station facades was of a yellow ochre color.

Description

The railway station is in the center of town at the Warsaw - Łódź railway line. A representational station building is on the southern part of the tracks. To the west, there are remnants of the former auxiliary buildings. A five-story water tower is on the other side of the tracks. We don't know the exact construction date of these buildings. The brick station building has a symmetric plan of an elongated rectangle with side avant-corps in the north facade. A gable, mansard roof, the so-called Polish roof, clad with roof tiles and housing a usable attic crowns a one-story middle part. It's illuminated by eyelid windows in the south and dormers in the north. Two-story side parts of avant-corps flank a lower part of avant-corps, also including an attic under a four-sloped roof.

Lavish decoration of the building consists of Historicist elements juxtaposed in an innovative way. The stylistic of railway stations built at that time represented “a visible sign of Polish spirit.” Lower parts of walls were clad with a stone cover and pronounced buttresses highlighted corners. Rectangular window and door openings in the parterre were in arcaded panels. Profiled cornices part stories, whereas windows of the second story and decorative surrounds stress the attic.

Two-part gables over side parts of the building with volutes, decorated with cornices, ornamental plinths and spheres are most distinctive. The building represents a pass-through railway station type. Stairs precede the main entrance which is along the axis of the southern facade. Inside the building, there's a central hall with a waiting room, ticket offices and former office rooms on the ground floor. An original wooden beamed ceiling draws attention here, which is almost the same as the one applied in the station in Modlin in the same period.