Park Południowy, Wrocław

Park Południowy is the designed landscape park in the southern part of Borek, with its lawns and large pond forming the heart of the plan. Unlike many city parks, this one was laid out on new ground rather than adapted from woodland. In 1877, the landowner, merchant and philanthropist Julius Schottländer gave this land to the city in return for connecting Borek to the gas, water and sewer networks.

By 1892, landscape architect Hugo Richter and botanist Ferdinand Cohn had created the park’s open clearings and pond. Notice the fountains on the water and the Landsberg viewing terrace above it. A brewery owner, Georg Haase, once built a restaurant here with a tall tower; it operated until 1945.

Near that former restaurant site, the bronze Chopin monument has stood since the fifth of September 2004. Jan Kucz designed it as a nearly four-metre figure of the composer, weakened by tuberculosis, seated on a sofa and absorbed in music. Three sides of its concrete trellis have since become covered in climbing plants. The park has been protected as a heritage site since 1995, and its 109 plant species include swamp cypresses, American tulip trees and shagbark hickories.