Plac Powstańców Warszawy, Wrocław

Plac Powstańców Warszawy lies in Wrocław’s Old Town, in the area historically known as the New Town. It joins the National Museum in the former Old Regency with the New Regency, now the Lower Silesian Voivodeship Office. Its landscape grew from former waterways, fortifications and the creation of Juliusz Słowacki Park.

Plac Powstańców Warszawy is the square unfolding at the edge of Wrocław’s Old Town, in the district once called the New Town. It is an unusually condensed piece of the city: the former Old Regency building beside it now houses the National Museum, while the New Regency is home to the Lower Silesian Voivodeship Office. This ground began as a strip caught between the Oder and the Oława, when the Oława still fed the city moat.

The New Town’s defensive works formed its western boundary until they were demolished in eighteen oh seven. Their removal made room for the Old Town Promenade, which continues through today’s Juliusz Słowacki Park; the Polish Hill occupies the site of the former Brickmakers’ Bastion and gate. In the late nineteenth century, the area was reshaped again.

The Oława’s outlet was moved in eighteen seventy-six and its former channel filled, leaving the Gondola Bay as a remnant. The Old Regency rose between eighteen eighty-three and eighteen eighty-six as offices and homes for the regional government. The New Regency followed in nineteen thirty-six to nineteen thirty-nine, designed by Felix Bräuler with several collaborators.

The square has changed names repeatedly. It has borne its present name, honouring the Warsaw insurgents, since the seventh of August nineteen fifty-seven.