The history of the feature is related to the development of an estate near Warsaw, in the Ujazdów area, shaped by prominent artists for wealthy principals. Its present appearance is the result of reconstructions in the subsequent stages of redesigning the Łazienki Królewskie palace and park complex from the second half of the 17th century to the first half of the 19th century.

History

In the third quarter of the 17th century, the Marshal of the Crown, Stanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski, chose Ujazdowski Castle and the nearby bestiary as his residence and carried out costly arrangement works of the park and its water system. A reservoir was erected at the foot of the Warsaw Escarpment, collecting water from nearby springs that was fed to fountains in and in front of the recreation pavilion of the Bathhouse through a system of wooden pipes. A slope between the reservoir situated on the elevation and the Bathhouse located on the isle - a precursor of the future Palace on the Water, was used to transport water. In the years 1777-1778, upon Stanisław August Poniatowski’s order, the reservoir was transformed into a partially residential pavilion. According to older sources, it was designed by Dominik Merlini, an architect who designed various features of the royal summer residence reshaped into an English landscape park. The feature has a cylindrical shape and its central part includes a small courtyard with a well, overlooked by windows of four rooms and a kitchen arranged around it. It was not plastered on the outside and featured raw brick walls without window openings. It was referred to as “a round building” or a “fortified tower” due to associations with the medieval architecture. It was the only building shaped according to this style in the Łazienki Królewskie park during the reign of Stanisław August Poniatowski. It was modelled upon the park pavilions resembling Gothic towers, popular in Europe at that time. The features inspired by the Middle Ages also existed in other complexes located around Warsaw. The Water Reservoir had visual links with the Gothic Castle in the complex owned by Izabela Lubomirska, located to the south, at the foot of the escarpment in Mokotów, and the Red Mill in the Królikarnia park. In 1818, after being sold to the Russian Tsar, the area of upper Łazienki park, with a Water Reservoir and the Theatre in the Orangery, was intended as a Botanical Garden of the newly established Royal University of Warsaw. It was then that the plans of the reshaping of the pavilion appeared, making it similar on the outside to the tomb of Cecilia Metella, eagerly imitated in the Antique Classicism era, with a distinctive bucranium and garland frieze referring to offerings laid during the Roman funeral ceremonies. According to a preserved anonymous plan, the feature was supposed to differ from the original by an addition of a cupola and large windows. In his design from 1822, Hilary Szpilowski took previous references existing in Warsaw to the tomb at Via Appia as an inspiration for the Water Reservoir, i.e. a kitchen building in the Królikarnia park from 1780, authored by Dominik Merlini. In 1823 the Reservoir was reshaped according to the design that was most closely related to the original of Rome, prepared by Chrystian Piotr Aigner. The building was extended upwards and decorated on the outside with rustication, a decorative frieze and a portico. After 1834, following the closure of the University, the area of the Botanical Garden was reduced and the Water Reservoir returned to Łazienki Królewskie. Despite being the tsar’s residence, the park was open to the public. Between 1886 and the outbreak of World War I, a wooden kiosk, in which gingerbread was sold, was added to the Reservoir. Next to it, a cast iron pump was located, most probably for the purpose of drawing water from the well. During World War II the building was slightly damaged. It was renovated in 1946. Already in the second half of the 20th century the fountain in front of the Palace on the Water was fed with spring water from the well of the round Water Reservoir. After a renovation in the late 20th century, water was fed through a canal to the northern pond and the Water Reservoir’s interior was dedicated to exhibitions. Currently, after the planned restoration works, it is still supposed to function as an exhibition pavilion.

Description

The building is situated in the south-western part of the Łazienki Królewskie complex, close to the entrance to a garden in front of the Old Orangery. It is surrounded by the park greenery and located on a small slope, at the foot of the Warsaw Escarpment. It is a Classicist park pavilion, made of brick, plastered, set on a round floor plan with a courtyard housing a well in the middle. The façades of the cylindrical body are adorned with plate rustication and crowned with a cornice with a motif of bucraniums (ox skulls), joined by fruit garlands decorated with rosettes above. Over the entablature there is a simple parapet hiding a shed roof clad in sheet metal, sloping towards the courtyard. On the ground level, the building is encircled by a stone plinth, whose height is adjusted to the slope of the terrain. From the east, on the bottommost side of the building, there is a door portal preceded by stairs framed by plinths, each supporting a pair of fluted columns and pilasters of the portico with a simple entablature and a cornice adorned with dentils. Above, on the façade, there is a rectangular panel which, according to the design by Aigner, was supposed to be decorated with a relief. Inside, around the courtyard, there are small rooms preceded by an oval vestibule with wooden stairs leading to the attic.

The structure can be viewed from the outside.

Compiled by Małgorzata Laskowska-Adamowicz, National Institute of Cultural Heritage, Regional Branch in Warsaw. 13.12.2017

Bibliography

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