Architecture in game

Houses of game characters – the Szulski tenement house from The Thaumaturge

The Szulski family’s tenement house is the center of events taking place in Warsaw in 1905, according to the game The Thaumaturge. Before I write about Warsaw itself, shown in this title, it’s time to say a few words about an interesting building that we will visit many times.

The hero of The Thaumaturge returns after many years spent abroad to the then Warsaw to fall into the whirlwind of the intrigues of the elites and the hustle and bustle of tight backyards. And the place to which we will return many times is his family home, the Szulski tenement house located in Śródmieście Północne.

Warsaw tenement houses, oh these Warsaw tenement houses…

First of all, you need to know that the tenement houses that we can currently find in the centers of our cities most often come from the post-war years and have little in common with the golden era of richly decorated buildings from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

There is also a decorative gate leading to the yard / own materials

The game takes place in 1905, but the tenement house itself was most likely built somewhere around the mid-19th century. It is a three-story building, richly decorated and with bay windows. Its attractiveness is also influenced by the fact that it is not attached to any other building and it has a small garden.

The Szulski tenement house in all its glory / own materials

Looking at the Szulski tenement house, you can easily come to the conclusion that it is a very wealthy family. Even by the standards of the elite living in Śródmieście. This is proven not only by the previously mentioned advantages of the building, but also by the fact that its entire interior is used only by the owners. The property does not include the then very popular annexes or apartments for rent for the city’s less wealthy citizens.

The ground floor is clearly manifested by a different decor than the other floors. He is also, according to canon, taller. This was quite a popular division at the time. You must know that it was only at the end of the 19th century that tenement houses higher than three floors began to be built en masse.

The ground floor plan clearly shows that the Szulski tenement house has a rather complicated division/own materials

Which was a great technological achievement, but at the same time it made the buildings more colorful with decorations. The Szulski tenement house must therefore come from earlier years.

Rich interior…

As I mentioned earlier, the building has three floors (plus an attic, which suggests a balcony), but in the game we can only visit two. Interestingly, there are no stairs leading to the third floor.

The mezzanine in Father Szulski’s office suggests that the building on the second floor may have a higher floor, but they do not think this is the case / own materials

Perhaps the second floor has a raised floor and the external division of the building is only an imitation. This can be proven by Father Szulski’s office, which has two levels. Is that so? I don’t think so, but it can’t be ruled out.

Leaving aside the issue of the lack of stairs to the third floor and the attic, I must admit that I am enchanted by the layout of the tenement house and what the interiors look like there. On the ground floor there is a decorative hall with a kind of foyer. In addition, there are rooms for receiving guests. A living room, a dining room, a coffee room with a glass bay window and a kitchen where the housekeeper Grażyna prepares dishes.

The second floor is the hosts’ private rooms. This is a very popular division into official and private parts. Interestingly, the Szulski family’s tenement house, despite being built in 1905, already has running water and a telephone line. But on the other hand, this is not surprising, after all, sewage systems according to William Lindley’s plans began to be distributed in 1883.

Please note that the interiors upstairs are much cozier and warmer than the official part downstairs. There is a beautiful wooden mosaic on the floor, the walls are fashionably decorated with wallpapers with a more discreet pattern, and the interior is full of the owners’ trinkets.

Senior Szulski’s office occupies a huge part of the second floor and clearly this place was designed this way for a reason. Guests visiting the host were made to feel tiny as they sat down at a small coffee bench facing the host’s huge oak desk. The solemnity of this room is enhanced by the huge book collection located behind the host, occupying two floors.

These Szulskis are wealthy, but the shop is so poor

I don’t fully understand the whole lore in The Thaumaturge, to be honest. People don’t know about thaumaturges, but everyone knows. They seem to work in secret, but even the poor know them. And the tenement house is huge, and the family shop doesn’t seem particularly impressive.

The Szulski shop doesn’t seem very impressive / own materials

Perhaps our protagonist’s father simply inherited part of the estate, or the shop was just an addition to the basic earning function, which was intelligence, in its entirety? The creators don’t fully explain it.

However, there is no relief from doubts that the Szulski family did very well financially and could be considered the elite of Warsaw at that time. Taking into account that their tenement house was located in Śródmieście and had approximately 1,600 square meters, its estimated value today could be as much as PLN 39 million.

” The Szulski tenement house could currently cost over PLN 39 million “

How did I calculate it?

I estimated the initial size of the building based on the characteristic mosaic on the floor. I assumed that one square corresponds to one square meter, then I calculated the surface area, multiplied it by the number of storeys and subtracted approximately 200 m2 for holes, shafts and empty space. I then multiplied the result by the average price per square meter for this district obtained from Domiporta.pl, which is over PLN 24,000. PLN per m2.

Of course, this is a hypothetical and average result. Taking into account the historic facade, works of art and historical value, the preserved Szulski property could cost much more.

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