Ogród Krasińskich, Warsaw

Ogród Krasińskich is a historic urban park in Muranów, bounded by Świętojerska, Andersa, Stare Nalewki, and Długa streets, beside Krasiński Square. It began in 1676 as the garden attached to the Krasiński Palace, created for Jan Dobrogost Krasiński. Its earliest layout was Baroque: formal and ordered, designed as part of an aristocratic residence.

The state acquired the estate in 1765 and opened the garden to everyone on the first of April 1768. Franciszek Szanior later remade it as an English landscape garden, with a freer, more natural character. At Krasiński Garden Pond, formed during the eighteen nineties, Leon Machowski’s sculpture gathers five fishermen aboard a boat carrying an enormous fish.

This calm setting also preserves harsh memories: insurgents won a fight at the park’s western edge during the November Uprising, enabling them to seize the Royal Arsenal’s weapons. During wartime occupation, the Warsaw Ghetto boundary ran beside the garden. The park grew after the war, absorbing ground where ruined neighbouring buildings were never rebuilt.