kanonia square, old town, warsaw :: photo source

back in the 17th/18th centuries the people of poland were subject to a property tax which varied according to 2 things: the width of their property’s street-facing wall and the number of windows within that same wall. so, owners of houses with wide, window-peppered front-ends were victim to a higher rate of property tax than those who owned slim-faced houses without street-side windows.

it seems that some people took this to the extreme in an effort to save zloty, none more so than the owner of the incredible house above (if you’ve not spotted it yet, it’s the pale yellow sliver of building in the corner of the square). i’ve seen narrow houses before but none as crammed as this. i’ve also heard some intertubes-based claims that this is actually the narrowest house in europe. however, as with most intertubes-based claims, it’s hard to verify that. plus i simply can’t believe that the entire house maintains that maximum width the whole way through.


photo source

if anyone knows any more about the house it’d be great to hear from you - i’d also love to see some photos of the house’s back-end and interior. is the whole house actually this width? i really hope so.

[update]
thanks to the many people who left comments and emailed me about this slender property. as mentioned in the comments, the square can be found on google maps here. below is the view you’ll find. it doesn’t help an awful lot but there’s definitely a building behind that corner - whether it belongs to the narrow front-end, i’m not sure.



i also received the following photo from david which is a section of a photo seen here. still not conclusive.