The Saxon Palace, one of Warsaw’s treasures demolished by the Germans, will be magnificently reconstructed

20/10/2023
Bez kategorii, Culture

On 12 October, the results of a competition organised by the Association of Polish Architects (SARP) for the reconstruction of the Saxon Palace were announced. The competition participants’ task was to elaborate an architectural concept for the reconstruction Warsaw’s Saxon Palace.

The authors of the awarded project that their concept of the Palace is “based on the assumption that reconstruction is never just a recreation of the walls and aesthetics of the past but rather “a process of restoring or reshaping the city’s identity while emphasising the importance and influence of modernity.”

The jury was composed of twelve renowned architects such as Marek Dunikowski Mateusz Świętorzecki, Piotr Walkowiak, Jacek Lenart, and Marlena Happach, among others. The prize pool amounted to PLN 700,000 PLN (140.000 GBP) and was won by the architectural studio WXCA.

In their description of the concept, designers from WXCA explain that “the existing pedestrian routes will remain undisturbed, and the volume of the Palace and tenement houses will not constitute an urban barrier.”

On 9 September 2022, the appointment of the Saxon Palace Reconstruction Council took place at the Royal Castle in Warsaw.

“We are meeting at the ceremony of appointing members of the Reconstruction Council […] which will support the process of implementing the investment of rebuilding the Saxon Palace, Brühl Palace, and tenement houses at Królewska Street in Warsaw”, – Deputy Minister of Culture and National Heritage, General Conservator of Monuments, Dr Jarosław Sellin said at the time during the ceremony.

The Saxon palace was erected following the expansion of the 17th-century palace of Poland’s poet Jan Andrzej Morsztyn and was rebuilt numerous times in the following centuries. During the Second Polish Republic, it served as the seat of the General Staff of the Polish Army.

After the destruction of the Saxon Palace by the German army in December 1944, the only trace of it remained a fragment of the three central arcades with the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier – a celebration site of the most important national holidays.