University Botanical Garden & the Temple That Never Was
Why is it significant?
Slip through the gate and the noise of the avenue simply switches off. Glasshouses, beds labelled in Latin, an old observatory with a classical front, and ancient trees leaning over the paths: you are in the Botanical Garden of the University of Warsaw, founded in 1818.
Key Facts
| Place | University Botanical Garden & the Temple That Never Was |
|---|---|
| Address | Aleje Ujazdowskie 4, 00-478 Warszawa, Poland |
| Geo Coordinates | 52.21720, 21.02800 |
| Part of Walk | Warsaw's Green Royal Route: Aleje Ujazdowskie to Łazienki Park, Chopin and the Palace on the Isle |
| Generated | Generated |
Slip through the gate and the noise of the avenue simply switches off. Glasshouses, beds labelled in Latin, an old observatory with a classical front, and ancient trees leaning over the paths: you are in the Botanical Garden of the University of Warsaw, founded in 1818.
Its first director was the botanist Michał Szubert, and the garden was planted on the edge of the old royal grounds, right next to Łazienki. Within a few years the university's astronomical observatory rose beside it, so for a while this was the place where Warsaw studied both the leaves under its feet and the stars over its head.
Now find the low stone remains among the trees, and listen to their story. On 3 May 1791 Poland adopted its constitution, the first modern written constitution in Europe. To give thanks, the parliament voted to build a Temple of Divine Providence, and exactly one year later, on 3 May 1792, King Stanisław August and his brother laid the foundation stone right here.
Within weeks Russian armies crossed the border, the constitution was overturned, and within three years Poland had vanished from the map, divided between its neighbours. The temple never rose above its foundations. For more than two centuries those stones lay here like a sentence nobody could finish, and a church of the same name was only completed far to the south, in Wilanów, in the twenty-first century.
Meanwhile the garden did what gardens do. It was devastated in the war and patiently replanted, and today it shelters thousands of species, from alpine plants on rockeries to old trees that survived the ruin of 1944. In spring it is one of the most beautiful quiet corners in the city. When you are ready, go back to the avenue and continue south to the white palace on the hill, with its two gate lodges and its guard.