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PARK MUŻAKOWSKI NA LIŚCIE ŚWIATOWEGO DZIEDZICTWA

100%

Ochrona Zabytków

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2004

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issue 3-4

240-242

EN

On 2 July 2004 a session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee held in Suzhou (China) decided to include Mużakowski Park (Muskauer Park) onto the UNESCO World Heritage List. The early nineteenth-century Mużakowski Park has an area of more than 700 hectares, located on both sides of the Polish-German frontier; on the Polish side it is situated in the town of Łęknica (528 hectares), and on the German side – in Bad Muskau (206 hectares). The Polish part of the park is administered by the National Centre for Studies and Documentation of Historical Monuments in Warsaw. The park was established by Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau, who transformed his family residence into a sprawling park maintained in the landscape style. The realisation of the project, carried out in 1830-1845, involved Karl Friedrich Schindler, author of redesigning the park buildings, the painter August Schirmer, the architect John Adey Repton, and the gardener Jacob Heinrich Herder. The composition, inscribed into the natural interior of the river valley of the Nysa Łużycka, included the residence on the left bank of the Nysa, and the unrestrained lay out of a landscape park. The Mużakowski Park is the only European example of close inter-state cooperation undertaken for the sake of protecting and conserving a cultural landscape.

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Muskauer Park / Park Mużakowski (2004)

88%

STACHAŃCZYK R.

Ochrona Zabytków

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2017

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issue Dodatek Specjalny. Dziedzictwo w Polsce.

130-135

EN

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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Ośrodek Ochrony Zabytkowego Krajobrazu Narodowa Instytucja Kultury. Historia struktury organizacyjno-prawnej. Lata 1977-2002

63%

Michałowski A.

Ochrona Zabytków

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2012

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issue 1-2

57-72

EN

The idea to establish an institution comprising an interdisciplinary team of employees, particularly historians of art, architects, gardeners and landscape architects was connected with the innovative activity of Professor Stanisław Lorentz with regard to museums and monument protection and dates back to 1960. The institution underwent a number of organisational transformations and legal changes for years, finally becoming a part of the National Centre for Research and Documentation of Monuments after the liquidation of the Centre for the Protection of Historic Landscape and its merger with the Centre for Documentation of Monuments in 2002. The first steps of independent activity, which has been carried on permanently for further years, included the transformation of consciousness and the understanding of new aims of the entire staff of employees of the Administration, particularly technical and engineering personnel. The idea of the activity of the Administration and then the Centre was to combine research and documentation works with study and design works and field restoration works. One of the first comprehensive works, which was carried on interdisciplinarily in co-operation with German conservators, was the Muskau Park and the elaboration of the documentation of the inscription into the UNESCO World Heritage List. A number of projects was undertaken in the field of garden and park protection (Białystok, Mysłakowice). 1995 was a special year in the activity of the Centre, which constantly assumed new challenges to meet the current demand for the most important topics both in Poland and abroad. In 1986 a division of the Centre – a specialistic workshop – was established in Kielce. Apart from the Kielce workshop, individual tasks were undertaken to confront various methodologies of action and works undertaken independently and in other environments, also through publications contributing new proposals and solutions to our considerations. Important topics included the Racławice battlefield and the Augustów Canal. New prospects in the protection and design of city landscapes were opened thanks to the international conference “What are we doing to protect the beauty of historic cities... – Wrocław 2000”. The Centre engaged in several works that were performed in garden complexes. After years of failures, the co-operation with State Farms began to produce favourable results. The Centre did also research on rustic gardens. In 1996 the Centre began to organise a competition for the best works concerning the protection of historic garden complexes. Initiatives for the integration of the environment of monument and nature conservators were visible, among others, at the conference held in Jachranka in 1993. Cemeteries constituted an organisationally separate problem group in the Centre, which focused on the creation of conditions for field penetration and record-keeping on the so-called cemetery cards. International co-operation concerned many complex issues and states that jointly engaged in discussions and activities relating to the protection of monuments. The Centre co-operated with institutions such as PKN ICOMOS, ICOMOS IFLA and UNESCO. The longterm activity of the Centre for the Protection of Historic Landscape was focused on many topics relating to the protection of cultural landscape and the propagation of values contained in it. It undertook a difficult educational challenge and contributed to the building of a better state taking good care of its monuments. From the perspective of years, looking back at what has already been done, there arises a reflection that is worth passing on to further generations: even the smallest part of culture or landscape should be documented for the next years, because the identification of the most important and inalienable values and our history is enclosed in such documentation.

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3 Ochrona Zabytków

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PARK MUŻAKOWSKI NA LIŚCIE ŚWIATOWEGO DZIEDZICTWA

Muskauer Park / Park Mużakowski (2004)

Ośrodek Ochrony Zabytkowego Krajobrazu Narodowa Instytucja Kultury. Historia struktury organizacyjno-prawnej. Lata 1977-2002