Lazienki Krolewskie w Warszawie in Warsaw, Poland
Łazienki Park is the largest park in Warsaw, Poland, occupying 76 hectares of the city center.
The park-and-palace complex lies in Warsaw's central district on Ujazdów Avenue, which is part of the Royal Route linking the Royal Castle with Wilanów Palace to the south.
North of Łazienki Park, on the other side of Agrykola Street, stands Ujazdów Castle.
Originally designed in the 17th century as a baths park for nobleman Stanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski, in the 18th century Łazienki was transformed by Poland's King Stanisław August into a setting for palaces, villas, classicist follies, and monuments.
In 1918 it was officially designated a public park. Łazienki is visited by tourists from all over Poland and the world, and serves as a venue for music, the arts, and culture. The park is also home to peacocks and a large number of squirrels.
Łazienki Park was designed in the 17th century by Tylman van Gameren, in the baroque style, for military commander Stanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski. It took the name Łazienki (Baths) from a bathing pavilion that was located nearby.
The picturesque and charming garden scheme owes its emergence as its present shape and appearance mainly to the last ruler of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, King Stanisław August Poniatowski. In the mid-16th century, it became part of the estates of Poland's Italian-born Queen Bona Sforza, who built a wooden manor house with an Italian garden on this site. Later, the wooden manor house of Queen Anna Jagiellon stood on this spot, immortalized in 1578 by the performance of the first Polish play, “Dismissal of the Greek Envoys” by Jan Kochanowski. To the south, King Sigismund III Vasa had a four-sided stone castle with corner towers erected in 1624.
Structures in the Park
Palace on the Isle
The principal edifice of Łazienki is the Palace on the Isle. It was originally a baroque Bath-House erected in about 1680 by Lubomirski according to the design of Tylman van Gameren, the most outstanding architect in Poland at that time. The square-shaped structure had a three-side protrusion on its northern elevation. Inside was a round hall with a fountain and the hall was topped by a cupola illuminated from above by a lanterns. The walls were studded with pebbles, seashells and imitated grotto. Adjoining it was a bath chamber with walls adorned by bas-reliefs. Both the building's interior as well as its exterior elevation were richly decorated with stucco, sculptures and murals. A portion of the original decorations survived on the entrance wall of the columned portico. Also original is the Latin inscription to be read as a rebus. In translation it states: “This house hates sorrow, loves peace, offers a bath, recommends an idyllic life and wishes to play host to honest men.”
Classical amphitheater, and stage on the isle
The classical amphitheater, inspired by ancient Greek and Roman architecture, was built on the bank of the Łazienki lake, separated by a narrow strait from its stage on a small isle. The amphitheater was built in 1790–93 by Jan Chrystian Kamsetzer. Its attic was embellished with 16 statues representing famous poets, playwrights, and thinkers of antiquity and of the 16th-17th centuries. In 1922 the 16 statues were replaced by 8 statues.
White House
The Little White House is a garden villa built in 1774-76 by Domenico Merlini. It housed King Stanisław August Poniatowski's mistress and, for a time, Louis XVIII, who lived here in 1801-05 during his exile from France. Built in the form of a square, it has identical facades, adorned with rustication, an attic and a small pavilion at the top. The interiors were decorated by the prominent Polish painters Jan Ścisło and Jan Bogumił Plersch.
Myślewicki Palace
The palace, which was named after the now nonextant village of Myślewice, stood at the end of a road leading into town. Initially it was conceived as a one-storey villa set on a square. Flanking the building's main entrance, set off by lanterns held up by sculpted children, Monaldi's statues of Zephyr and Flora were enshrined within two smaller niches in 1777.
The Old Orangery
The Old Orangery was erected in 1786–88 in a rectangular horseshoe shape, with the southern façade of the core structure broken up by pilasters and arcaded great windows. The adjoining wings to the west were quarters for gardeners and staff. In the considerably larger wing to the east, a theatre was set up with an entrance in the two-tiered elevation. Due to its richly decorated interior which has luckily survived to modern times, it is one of the world's few extant examples of an authentic 18th-century court theatre.
New Orangery
The building was built by Adam Adolf Loewe and Józef Orłowski in 1860. Neo-classicist with eclectic elements, it was designed to shelter the collection of orange trees.
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