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Muskauer Park / Park Mużakowski (2004)

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STACHAŃCZYK R.

Ochrona Zabytków

2017

issue Dodatek Specjalny. Dziedzictwo w Polsce.

130-135

Muskauer Park/Park Mużakowski is an extensive landscape initially developed between 1815 and 1844 by Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau, harmoniously set in the river valley of the Lusatian Neisse, which is currently the state border between Poland and Germany. The park, whose composition is of the highest aesthetic quality, blends fluidly with the naturally-formed river valley. Its essence lies in the visual relationship between the central residence, the New Castle, and a series of topographical focal points. It is an example of a cultural landscape created by man, in which the site’s natural attributes have been harnessed with the utmost skill. Criteria: (i), (iv) transboundary property (Germany / Poland) Muskauer Park – conservation and reintegration In many ways the Muskauer Park is a unique property among sites in Poland included on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The site has been steadily gaining in importance and prestige defying its peripheral transboundary location and its peculiarity as a historic garden. Undoubtedly, the site owes much of its rising popularity to its extraordinary history that is closely linked with both Europe’s dramatic past and more recent developments, as well as with bilateral conservation efforts, themselves a veritable phenomenon on a European scale. Dating back to the first half of the 19th century, the Muskauer Park was founded by Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau, the owner of the local estates and a distinguished figure of German Romanticism. The park is an expression of his unreserved imagination and a result of his life’s passion for creating his own image, which the creator materialised as imaginary scenery covering more than 700 hectares on both sides of the Lusatian Neisse. It would be hard to find, whether in Poland or elsewhere in Europe, solutions quite matching the scale and grandeur of this park: its expansive meadows interconnected as complex systems of the park’s open areas, connected vistas extending for more than several hundred metres, carefully designed plays of light and shadow, successfully created illusions, sophistication in setting the course of the alleys, refined compositions of plants, the exceptional sense of space, and, above all, the consonance between the form and the contents – all forming a highly coherent and multi-layered synthesis of all the elements of that fascinating garden. Indeed, a synthesis of more than a garden, of meticulously designed scenery. Meanwhile, when the new political order was established in Europe in 1945, it seemed that history would put an end to the existence of this extraordinary area. A new, difficult period began in the history of the park – one when the site was losing its coherence. The Lusatian Neisse River, which had previously been a winding feature crossing the large-scale landscape composition, became the state border between the German Democratic Republic and the Polish People’s Republic. The history of the two parts of the park went in two different directions. Aside from the ruined and burnt palace, the western part, which was put into order quite quickly, was able to function autonomously. However, the loss of the interconnection between the two parts – both in functional and spatial terms, the disintegration of the organism, which had been designed as a well thought-out whole, was a true drama for the eastern part. The new legal status and owner – handing the park over to the Polish State Forest Administration, caused the concept of the naturalist composition, with only a few architectural features, to become, over time, less and less recognisable. The clarity of the tracks and the layout of the park features were being gradually lost, with the spatial interactions and the meticulously landscaped scenery slowly disappearing. The links between the heritage and the community who had lived here, were vanishing too. The park remained anonymous for the newcomers who settled here as a result of forced displacements from the eastern territories of the pre-war Republic of Poland. When it appeared that the fate of the site was sealed in the early 1980s, in a similar manner to the post-war division of Europe which also seemed permanent, there came a turning point. As a result of the interest in the park by German restorers, at the turn of the 1990s, in an atmosphere of reconciliation and building a sense of community, wide-ranging collaborative conservation efforts, unprecedented in Europe, were undertaken to protect and restore the Muskauer Park. In 1993, the government of Saxony established the Fürst-Pückler-Park Bad Muskau Foundation, which took the restoration of the original German composition into its own hands. At about the same time, the administration of the Polish part was entrusted to Board for the Protection and Conservation of Palaces and Gardens (today National Heritage Board of Poland), acting on behalf of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. The Polish administration over the area started to be organised from scratch. In over two and a half decades, the organisational and technical bases for the conservation and care of the park have been established, including exchange of information and materials, agreeing action plans, building cooperation through management structures, and joint investments. One of the key initiatives was the reconstruction, first, of the centrally-located Double Bridge (2003), and then, of the English Bridge (2011) in the northern part of the park, which restored the functional unity of the area as a whole and helped to reconstruct the historical scenario for the visit, as recommended by Prince Pückler in his work Andeutungen über Landschaftsgärtnerei. In this way, after more than 60 years, the two parts of the composition were bound together again, laying the foundations for the park reintegration process. Today, by following the gradually reconstructed paths which were previously hardly noticeable and overgrown with self-sown plants, visitors can reach most of the key features forming the composition. The Mausoleum Terrace, Horse chestnut Hill, Mary’s Hill, Freda’s View, Golden Hill are only some of the spots on the Polish side to which the wide roads, designed for moving about in a horse-driven carriage, lead. Designed in a highly dynamic, precise manner, they guide visitors to a sequence of stone benches overlooking the vistas planned by the creator. The works of the successive restorers have uncovered the outstanding qualities of the landscape design, which filled the creator himself and the continuators of his venture with unfeigned delight, and are confirmed by literary sources. Since the completion in 2013 of the renovation of the New Castle, which is the predominant feature of the entire layout, both sections of the park have been acquiring proper meaning. In addition attitudes among the community living around the park have been changing. One of the most important events – the outdoor Park Festival, which was initiated two decades ago by a group of Polish landscape architects working on the renovation of the park and is held in both parts of the park, have gained astonishing momentum since the administrator of the German part and Łęknica’s local government jointed the initiative. It is one of the forms of cooperation bringing together on a regular basis the local governments, institutions and organisations which participate in creating the cultural agenda of Polish-German events, organise exhibitions, issue publications, and deliver educational programmes. From the Polish perspective, such types of activities have been, from the start, part of a mission which is inseparable from the restoration efforts themselves. The mission is to build new value, overcome stereotypes on both sides of the border, and create a sustainable relationship, founded on mutual acceptance and respect. For the local community, the Lusatian Neisse, which flows along the border and is hidden when one admires the vistas, is now being perceived exclusively as a feature integrating the landscape, and not as a formal barrier. The everyday lives and activities of the residents of both border towns are merging. The people, nature, and the scenery are mutually complementary, reflecting the original idea of the park founder. Thus, the ideas for its renovation outlined in the late 1980s, which assumed going beyond mere restoration activities with the aim of making the local population aware of the significance of the site as a source of new identity and identification, are being slowly realised.

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1 Ochrona Zabytków

1 STACHAŃCZYK R.

1 2017

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Muskauer Park / Park Mużakowski (2004)