History

Krzywiczyny, mentioned in documents already in 1483, from 1623 to the mid-18th century belonged to descendants of the staroste of Kluczbork and Byczyna - baron Adam von Frankenberg-Proschlitz. Approx. in 1780, in the place of an old manor house built using the wattle-and-daub technique, an Classicist palace was built and a landscape park was created. At the turn of the 18th and the 19th century, the village was bought by Jan Henryk Gotfryd von Nostitz und Jaenckendorf (1756-1833) who also owned an estate in Płonice. From 1853 to 1945, the property in Krzywiczyny was owned by the von Watzdorf family whose members not only got the construction of the palace completed, but also, in the second half of the 19th century, ordered the construction of grange utility buildings. After World War II, the palace complex was nationalised and a State Agricultural Holding was operating in it. The last renovation of the palace was carried out in the 1980s and 1990s of the 20th century. Today, the site is unused.

Description

The palace and park and grange complex is located in the centre of Krzywiczyny, on the western side of the road from Wołczyn to Komorzno. The palace is surrounded by the park from the east and the south, with neighbouring utility buildings of the grange and semi-detached houses for servants.

The two-storey building of the palace, made of brick and plastered, was erected on a floor plan shaped as an elongated rectangle. The palace is covered with a hip roof. The front (western façade) has fifteen axes, with a false three-axial avant-corps located in the middle, topped with a triangular flattened pediment. On the ground floor level of the avant-corps, there is a rusticated portal with a keystone in surrounds. The garden façade replicates the layout of the front façade. On the walls, there are surviving frame partitions formed by pilasters and a profiled crowning cornice. Window openings are framed by rectangular surrounds, and in the garden façade, above the window openings of the ground floor, there are semi-circular, triangular, and curved window headers. The space between windows in the front façade and side façades is decorated with panels with chamfered corners.

The interior has a two-bay layout, with a corridor in the centre and a vestibule on the axis, next to which there is a one-flight staircase. The basement rooms and the former kitchen are covered with barrel vaults. In the 1960s, rooms on the ground floor level were covered with ceilings (some of them with crown moulding), and rooms on the first floor featured beamed ceilings. The present ceilings are made of reinforced concrete.

The original fittings and décor of the palace have not been preserved.

compiled by Aleksandra Ziółkowska, Regional Branch of the National Heritage Board of Poland in Opole, 09-12-2015.

Bibliography

• Gaworski M., Opolskie zamki i pałace, Strzelce Opolskie 2011, s. 84.
• Karta ewidencyjna zabytku architektury, Założenie pałacowo-parkowo-folwarczne w Krzywiczynach, oprac. Jankowski G., 1997, Archiwum Wojewódzkiego Urzędu Ochrony Zabytków w Opolu.
• Katalog Zabytków Sztuki w Polsce, t. 7: Województwo opolskie, z. 4: Powiat kluczborski, oprac. T. Chrzanowski, A. Ciechanowiecki, Warszawa 1958, s. 29-30.
• Thullie C., Zabytki architektoniczne województw katowickiego i opolskiego. Przewodnik, Katowice 1969, s. 217.
• Zabytki Sztuki w Polsce. Śląsk, red. zbiorowa, Warszawa 2006, s. 461.