Royal Baths Park

Infobox park
park=Łazienki Park


image size=250px
caption='Fryderyk Chopin statue'
type=Municipal
location=Warsaw
coordinates=
size=76 ha [pl icon cite news |author = |url = http://www.lazienki-krolewskie.pl/ |title = Park
work = Muzeum Łazienki Królewskie |publisher = |pages = |page = |date = |accessdate = 2008-02-09]
opened=1918 [pl icon cite news |author = |url = http://lazienki.ueu.pl/content/view/63/86/lang,pl/ |title = Kalendarium
work = Muzeum Łazienki Królewskie |publisher = |pages = |page = |date = |accessdate = 2008-02-09] [pl icon cite news |author = |url = http://www.kosmaty.pl/projekt/strony/zabytki/lazienki_krolewskie.htm |title = Łazienki Królewskie
work = Encyklopedia Warszawy |publisher = |pages = |page = |date = |accessdate = 2008-02-09]
operator=
annual visitors=
status=Open all yearThe Royal Baths Park ( _pl. Park Łazienkowski, or "Łazienki Królewskie") is the largest park in Warsaw, Poland, occupying 76 hectares of the city center. The park-and-palace complex lies in Warsaw's Downtown ("Śródmieście"), on Ujazdów Avenue ("Aleje Ujazdowskie") on the "Royal Route" linking the Royal Castle with Wilanów, to the south. Just to the north, on the other side of Agrykola Street, Łazienki Park adjoins Ujazdów Castle.

History

Łazienki Park was established in the 17th century by Tylman van Gameren, in the baroque style, for Stanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski. It took the name "Łazienki" ("Baths") from a bathing pavilion that was located there.

In 1764 the gardens were acquired by Stanisław August Poniatowski after his election as King of Poland.

The now classicist-style gardens became Stanisław August's life's work. The park-and-palace complex was designed by Domenico Merlini, Johann Christian Kammsetzer and landscape gardener Jan Christian Schuch. Its principal buildings cluster around or near the Łazienki Lake and Łazienki River. Stanisław August's palace situated on the lake is called the "Palace on the Water."

Most of the park's buildings burned during and after the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, amid fighting between German and Polish forces. The structures nevertheless were relatively well-preserved, compared to the Old Town (the Germans had drilled holes in the palace walls for placement of explosives but had not gotten around to detonating them).

Reconstruction of the park and palaces was completed within a few years after World War II.

Buildings in the Park

Palace on the Water

The Palace on the Water ( _pl. Pałac na Wodzie), also called the Łazienki Palace ("Pałac Łazienkowski") and the Palace on the Island ("Pałac na Wyspie"), was built in the 17th century by Tylman van Gameren for Stanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski. Between 1772 and 1793 it was remodeled by Domenico Merlini for King Stanisław August Poniatowski, who made it his residence.

The original bathhouse was built in a Chinese style. The building, now a beautiful medley of architectural styles, was then graced with reliefs and painted Dutch tiles.

The palace's furniture and paintings belong to the Classicist style. The building is dominated by an "attika" supported by columns, and featuring statues of mythological figures.

The palace stands on an artificial island on Łazienki Lake, and is connected to the rest of the park by two arcaded bridges. The long Łazienki Lake is divided by the palace into two parts, a smaller northern lake and a larger southern one.

The palace's ground floor includes a "Bacchus room," royal baths, a ballroom, a portrait gallery, a Solomon Room, a rotunda with figures of Polish kings, a lower picture gallery which contains minor works by Rubens and Rembrandt, and a chapel. Also on the ground floor is a dining room in which the famous "Thursday dinners" took place, to which Stanisław August Poniatowski invited leading artists, writers and politicians.

The first floor contains the royal apartments, an upper picture gallery, a balcony room, the king's study, the royal bedchambers, a cloakroom, and an officer's room. The Palace on the Water was burned after the 1944 Warsaw Uprising by the Germans, who had prepared to blow it up but never got around to doing so. It was rebuilt after World War II.

Roman theater

White House

The Little White House ("Biały Domek") was built by Domenico Merlini in 1774-76 as another of Stanisław August Poniatowski's summer residences—not as a palace, but as a garden villa, with an orangerie, painting gallery, and living quarters. It served the King as a secret love nest.

Another famous resident of the White House was Louis XVIII, [en icon cite web |author = |url = http://www.warsaw-life.com/culture/culture_details/224-Lazienki_Palace |title = Lazienki Palace |work = warsaw-life.com |publisher = |pages = |page = |date = |accessdate = 2008-02-16] who lived here in 1801-05 during his exile from France. [pl icon cite web |author = |url = http://www.lazienki-krolewskie.pl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=30&Itemid=36 |title = Biały Dom |work = lazienki-krolewskie.pl |publisher = |pages = |page = |date = |accessdate = 2008-02-16]

The lodge has seven rooms, beautifully appointed with original furniture and decor, including Chinese wallpaper, which was popular at the time, and delicate "grotesques" painted by Jan Bogumił Plersch and Jan Ścisło.

Myślewice Palace

Named for the village of Myślewice, the little palace (in Polish, called "Pałac Myślewicki") was built by King Stanisław August Poniatowski in 1775–79 to an early-classicist design by Domenico Merlini.

The palace's main, three-story body features a central entry niche and is flanked by quarter-circle wings. The facade is adorned by an enormous shell with sculptures of Zephyr and Flora by Giacomo Monaldi. The gently recurved rooflines reflect then-popular Chinese designs.

Initially the palace housed royal courtiers; later it was taken over by Prince Józef Poniatowski, whose initials appear in a cartouche over the entrance.

The palace survived World War II.

On September 15, 1958, the first talks were held here between the ambassadors of the Chinese People's Republic and the United States of America—the first attempt to establish contact between the two countries.

Old Orangery

New Orangery

Temple of Diana

In 1822, Jakub Kubicki erected a classicist temple to the goddess Diana. Also called the "Temple of the Sybil," it stands in the northwest part of the southern Łazienki lake. The wooden building is massive and decorated inside with murals of flower and fruit motifs.

Egyptian Temple

An Egyptian temple was also built in 1822 by Jakub Kubicki, at the southwest shore of the southern Łazienki Lake. It was placed next to the fortress built by Stanisław Lubomirski, which protected Warsaw south of that point. In 1771 a bridge was built to it. During the Warsaw Uprising, only the northern part of the temple survived; the southern part has never been rebuilt.

Water tower

Buildings near the Park

Belweder

The Belweder Palace was erected about 1660 and was remodeled in the first half of the 18th century in the Baroque style. It was acquired by King Stanisław August Poniatowski, who used it as a porcelain-manufacturing plant. From 1818 it was the residence of the ruler of Russian Poland, Grand Duke Constantine, and it was remodeled in 1819–22 in Neoclassical style by Jakub Kubicki. As a child, Fryderyk Chopin would be invited to the Belweder to be a playmate to the Grand Duke's son and to soothe the Grand Duke's nerves with his piano playing. When officer cadets barracked on the Royal Baths grounds opened the November 1831 Uprising with an attempted capture of the Grand Duke, it was from the Belweder Palace that he fled to safety.

After the re-establishment of Poland's independence, in 1918–22 the Belweder served as quarters to Józef Piłsudski, and in 1922-26 as the presidential residence of Gabriel Narutowicz and Stanisław Wojciechowski. During Piłsudski's May 1926 Coup d'État, Wojciechowski fled the Belweder for Wilanów, to the south.

From 1989 to July 1994, the Belweder Palace was the official residence of Poland's president. It now houses a museum dedicated to Józef Piłsudski.

Ujazdów Castle

The first castle was erected on the spot by the Dukes of Masovia as early as in 13th century. In 1624, the stone castle was raised by King Sigismund III Vasa. Since 1683, it belonged to Great Crown Marshal Stanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski. The gardens surrounding the castle, later divided onto two separate parks, were refurbished. About that time the Łazienki's Eremity and Łazienki Palace were built. The main axis of the castle's eastern façade was also underlined by the construction of a decorative "royal canal" built under the Vistula river embankment, on which the castle stood.

In 1764, it became the property of Stanisław August Poniatowski who remodeled it, and in 1784, donated to the Polish Army. The castle successively housed the barracks, a military hospital and a military medical school. The castle was burnt out and damaged by the Germans following the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. Rebuilt since 1975. It houses Warsaw's Center for Contemporary Art since 1981.

Observatory

Notes

ee also

* Thursday dinners
* Saxon Garden
* Ujazdów Park

External links

* [http://www.lazienki-krolewskie.pl/eng/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5&Itemid=60 Plan of the Łazienki Park]
* [http://www.warszawa.vr360.pl/ VIRTUAL TOUR] Łazienki in winter.

Gallery

Łazienki Park in 1775, by Bernardo Bellotto


Łazienki Palace in 1836, by Marcin Zaleski


Łazienki Park lake


Equestrian statue of King Jan III Sobieski

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18th-century garden sculpture


Myślewice Palace

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Old Orangery


19th-century orangery


Neo-Romantic statue of Fryderyk Chopin


Summer Sunday piano concert at Chopin statue


Łazienki Park, autumn


Roman theater


Roman theater


Peacocks at Roman theater — one of few animal species in the park


Water tower


Palace on the lake (front)