In the heart of Warsaw lies the picturesque Saxon Garden, which is its oldest public park. It founded at the end of the XVII century. But for the general public it was opened in 1727. The founder of the Saxon Garden was the Polish king – Augustus II the Strong. The city park with its inherent Baroque features created in the likeness of the Versailles Park. The Saxon Garden originates from the rear palace façade. Its main alley decorated with numerous sculptures, the total number of which in 1745 reached seventy. After the Second World War, only twenty park sculptures survived. In 1748, the Saxon Garden was supplemented by the Opera House. An opera house with five hundred seats. It was designed by the architect Popelmann on the model of the Dresden Maly Theater. However, by 1772 the theater was demolished. In the XIX century, the garden turns into an English park, filled with beauty and romance. By the middle of the 19th century, the park was decorated with a fountain. A decorative lake, a sundial, a water tower, a Summer Theater with a capacity of more than a thousand people. At the end of the Second World War, the city park was completely destroyed, its restoration took more than one year.
Saxon Garden History
The Saxon Palace suffered a tragic fate. After the restructuring of Augustus II, the palace became a royal residence from 1724, and after the death of his successor Augustus III in 1763, it lost this status and slowly fell into decay. The premises of the palace were rented out for offices and apartments. Part of the premises housed the Warsaw Lyceum. One of the apartments was rented for several years by the family of Frédéric Chopin, whose father taught French at the lyceum.
In 1839-1842, the building was rebuilt in the modern classical style at that time, instead of the central part. A monumental colonnade was erected on eleven arcades. Under which in 1925 the remains of an unnamed soldier were buried. After the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, the Saxon Palace was blown up by German soldiers. All that remains of it is a fragment of the arcade where the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is located. Now it is a monument to Polish soldiers who fell on the battlefields, with an eternal flame and an honor guard. After the Second World War, for many decades in Poland, the discussion of the restoration of the Saxon Palace has been going on with varying success. At the beginning of the two thousandth, excavations of the foundation and basements of the palace were carried out, but the work was suspended, and the allocated funds were directed to other projects. Now the issue of restoring the palace is being raised again.
