The Royal Castle: The Red Phoenix of Poland

Why is it significant?

Look across the expansive castle courtyard at the distinctive clock tower and glowing red brick walls of the Royal Castle.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Look across the expansive castle courtyard at the distinctive clock tower and glowing red brick walls of the Royal Castle. It is nearly impossible to believe as you stand here that in nineteen forty-five, this magnificent structure was reduced to a desolate pile of smoldering rubble, systematically dynamited by Nazi occupation forces.

Here in the Senate Chamber on May third, seventeen ninety-one, the Polish parliament adopted the famous May Constitution—the first written democratic constitution in Europe and the second in the world after that of the United States. It guaranteed religious tolerance, separation of powers, and civic liberties.

The entire palace was rebuilt between nineteen seventy-one and nineteen eighty-four through spontaneous nationwide donations from millions of ordinary Polish citizens and diaspora communities abroad, using salvaged plaster casts and pre-war architectural photographs.

Walk down narrow Świętojańska Street toward the brick Gothic gables of St. John's Archcathedral.