Between the land- and cityscape. The idea and practice of a garden in the baroque urban space

Abstract

The text is devoted to the place of gardens in a baroque city-(town)scape, links between urban planning and designing of residences, mainly on examples from Poland. The fascinating and unique image of baroque Warsaw has not been well investigated. Its layout gradually developed since 1620–30s along two directions – Vistula River and the main roads outside the city. Vast majority of gardens belonged to nobles and magnates; developed on fair-sized plots of lands, with palaces “entre cour et jardin”, they formed miniatures of French baroque landscape layouts. In a garden planning the most important role played vistas towards the Vistula valley (gardens on a top of a river slope), while more rarely – into the city. The 18th century Warsaw made a kind of a “garden city”. Besides, following foreign models, a significant phenomenon of a public garden emerged there.In the country another distinctive phenomenon should be noticed, i.e. private towns, accompanying magnate residences. With huge, magnificent gardens as important components, residences formed independent islands in towns, while dominating their planning. The strictly private character of these gardens was expressed by encompassing with walls.