Warsaw Barbican

The construction of the Barbican in 1540 marked the replacement of an older gate, its purpose being the protection of Nowomiejska Street. It was designed by Jan Baptist the Venetian, an Italian Renaissance architect who resided and worked in the Mazowsze region of 16th-century Poland. He played a pivotal role in the renovation of the 14th-century city walls, which had fallen into disrepair by that time. The Barbican took the shape of a three-level semicircular bastion, manned by fusiliers, with a width of 14 meters and a height of 15 meters from the moat's bottom that encircled the city walls. It extended 30 meters outward from the external walls.

Despite its impressive inception, the four-towered Barbican soon became an obsolete structure with little practical use. This obsolescence was chiefly due to the rapid advancements in artillery technology. Its defensive function was activated only once.

In the 18th century, recognizing its negligible defensive value, the Barbican was partially dismantled. The city benefitted more from a larger gate that facilitated the flow of people and goods in and out of the city. In the 19th century, the Barbican's remnants were integrated into newly constructed apartment buildings (kamienica). During the interwar period of 1937–1938, Jan Zachwatowicz embarked on a reconstruction project, restoring part of the walls and the western section of the bridge. Unfortunately, a shortage of funds delayed the Barbican's complete reconstruction, and the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany in 1939 put the plans on indefinite hold.

World War II, particularly the Siege of Warsaw (1939) and the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, caused extensive damage to the Barbican, as well as most of the Old Town's structures. Post-war, from 1952 to 1954, the Barbican was painstakingly rebuilt based on 17th-century etchings. The new government decided that it would be more cost-effective to reconstruct the Barbican and the nearby city walls as a tourist attraction than to rebuild the tenements. During its reconstruction, bricks from historic buildings demolished in the cities of Nysa and Wrocław were used. Most of the Barbican was faithfully restored, with only two exterior gates and the oldest tower on the side of the Old Town being left out. Today, it stands as a popular tourist destination.