About This Location
Look for the modest historic building on Teatralna Street, the narrow connector between Targ Węglowy and Świętego Ducha Street. This place is called Stara Apteka - “the Old Pharmacy” - but the name is an old local joke, not a medical claim. The story begins in 1636, when this was built as a powder magazine and a place linked to the city’s artillery supplies. Instead of pills and tonics, it produced “stone pills” - cannonballs - and other types of ammunition. It is a perfect Gdańsk detail: humor used to label something dangerous. This stop is also about layers. Archaeological work here revealed remains of the medieval defensive system under and around the later buildings. In the lower areas, traces of old walls and even remnants connected to an earlier Gothic tower were identified and incorporated into the modern redevelopment, so the “backstage” of this site is literally medieval. The building’s modern life is theatrical. After being ruined in 1945 and rebuilt in 1966 as a storage space for Teatr Wybrzeże, it was transformed again - and in October 2018 it reopened as a fully functioning, intimate theater venue. Part of the performance space was created below ground level, fitting the new stage into the tight gap between historic structures. Pause for a final look at how quiet the exterior seems. That calm facade hides a rare mix of stories in one small footprint: a seventeenth century military workshop, wartime destruction, postwar rebuilding, and a modern cultural space that still carries the city’s older walls in its bones.