Market Square area: Royal Palace

Royal Palace

It belongs to the Municipal Museum of Wroclaw. It dates back to 1717. The Baroque palace with the garden was built in Viennese style for Baron Heinrich Gottfried Spätgen's family. It became royal when it was purchased by Prussian King Frederic II The Great. Royal architect Johann Boumann The Elder adjusted the palace to the king's needs. A new 2-storey wing housing Music Room, Bedroom, Study, Library, Ball Room, Dining Room and Marshal's Room was built, it has not been preserved, though. The interior was decorated with Rococo ornaments. Between 1795 and 1796 King Frederic Wilhelm II ordered Karl Gotthard Langhans to redesign the oldest part of the palace in Classical style. Some more alterations took place during Frederic Wilhelm III's reign in 1809 and then during Frederic Wilhelm IV's reign between 1843 and 1846 when a new southern wing was added in Florence Renaissance style, designed by Berlin architect Friedrich August Stüler. A fragment of this building has been luckily preserved. Since 1918 the palace has belonged to the city which decided to open a museum there - which took place on 20th September 1926. The side wings were used by military authorities until 1938 and then became a part of the museum, too. During World War II the palace was destroyed, only the oldest part, former Spätgen Palace with its northern wings and a fragment of the southern wing were rebuilt. Between 1963 and 1999 it was a seat of the Archeological Museum and then until 2004 of the Ethnographic Museum. A thorough renovation was finished in 2008 and the modernized building was adjusted for the Municipal Museum of Wroclaw.  There are exhibitions such as - 1000 years of Wroclaw's History, "Wroclaw's Fine Arts of 19th and 20th Centuries", some original Baroque bourgeois interiors e.g. Beyersdorf Room, and Oriental Art Collection.