The History of the Landwarów Estate

Landwarów (also known as Landwarowo), situated in the Vilnius district, is one of the settlements with medieval origins. The earliest records date from the 14th century, though the village’s origins can be traced back to the 11th century. The first notable figure to hold the estate was Jan Sokołowicz-Kuncewicz, Marshal of the Court to Sigismund Augustus. In the later period of Landwarów, the estate changed hands many times – among the most important owners were the Sapieha, Naruszewicz, Chodkiewicz and Dąbrowski families.

A key moment in the estate’s architectural history was its purchase in 1855 by Józef Tyszkiewicz, who extended the manor house in the following decade. The mansion took on an irregular shape, with a tall, neo-Gothic tower serving as its main feature. The finials above part of the palace and the polygonal tower, amongst other features, were designed in the same style. The appearance of the residence during this period was captured in a lithograph by Napoleon Orda, who also depicted the steps leading from the building down to the lakeshore. The writer and ethnographer Edward Chłopicki visited the rebuilt Landwarów estate during one of his sightseeing trips, noting that: “the little palace (…) in the Swiss style is characterised mainly by a slender turret and a wide, iron-pillared porch leading up to the entrance”.

The tall, free-standing tower and the pointed-arch entrance gate, crowned with a bronze statue of a horse – documented both in Orda’s print and in an illustration published in *Kłosy* in 1887. Visitors were impressed by the scenic beauty of the grounds, complemented by landscaped planting, ponds, a fountain and sculptures. There were, of course, pavilions to complement the functional layout – including a distillery, mills and farm buildings.

Following the death of Józef Tyszkiewicz in 1891, Landwarów passed into the ownership of his son, Władysław, who carried out a further reconstruction in the Neo-Gothic style. The works that gave the palace the form it retains to this day were among the most spectacular projects of the late 19th century.

André and de Waegh. The residence of Władysław Tyszkiewicz

Born in 1865, Władysław Tyszkiewicz was a key figure in the economic and cultural development of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. He studied at the School of Political Sciences in Paris, and subsequently in Milan, where he gained expertise in the field of motoring. The Count was distinguished by his patriotic stance – he was involved in efforts to evacuate his compatriots from the Crimea, campaigned for the rights of Poles in Lithuania, and from 1903 he headed the Warsaw Society for the Promotion of Polish Industry and Trade. He also supported culture and the arts, having been one of the co-founders of the capital’s philharmonic society, amongst other things. The memory of his family estate in Landwarów played a significant role in Tyszkiewicz’s sense of identity – he drew on the estate’s name when running an antique shop called ‘Warowland’ whilst studying in the capital of Lombardy.

After inheriting the palace complex, the count decided to redesign the residence and its surroundings. De Waegh, a Belgian architect, was commissioned for the project; he likely collaborated on its implementation with Tadeusz Rostworowski and Leander Marconi. The principal designer’s background contributed to the introduction of Dutch motifs, such as the combination of brick with cement-finished sections of wall, incorporated, for example, in the corners of the avant-corps and window surrounds. Drawing on various European inspirations was also in keeping with the trends in architecture of the 1890s, when there was still an interest in forms drawing on the Middle Ages, but there was a gradual move away from English models (in favour of more diverse influences). The project was completed in 1899. The finished palace took on a form that has largely survived to this day. The building is predominantly two-storey, with raised avant-corps and a tall tower, the design of which was significantly monumentalised at that time. The main entrance, framed by a pointed-arch portal, was situated in the central risalit, which was connected to the side risalits by arcaded colonnades. On the opposite side, the façade repeats the arrangement of three projections, though the central one is polygonal in shape. The palace impressed with its scale and, at the same time, its attention to detail, which varied according to the floor and the function of a given section of the wall, lending the building a decorative character. The interiors of the Landwarów residence were equally fascinating. In the spacious, two-storey vestibule (with a stone staircase leading to the first floor), the statues of Apollo and Flora, set in niches, caught the eye. The ground floor also housed one of the most prestigious rooms, intended to attest to the owner’s intellectual horizons – namely, the library. The room’s furnishings consisted primarily of mahogany bookcases, in which a rich collection of volumes was stored. Among the rooms on the piano nobile, the ballroom and the dining room deserve special attention. The former had walls upholstered in red fabric, and its furnishings included pieces imported from the Palazzo Torlonia in Rome, as well as paintings by artists such as Guido Reni, Jacopo Bassano and Antoon van Dyck. The dining room, in turn, served as a venue for displaying a valuable collection of porcelain (including 18th-century pieces from the Meissen manufactory and French faience). These examples of interior design highlight an important feature of the palace and its owner, namely their commitment to acquiring and bringing works of art and artistic crafts to Landwarów. As a result, the estate became a place for collecting and displaying works illustrating various aspects of European culture.

During Władysław Tyszkiewicz’s time, the palace’s surroundings were also transformed. The garden layout was designed by Édouard François André, who had also been employed at the Tyszkiewicz family’s residences in Waca, Zatrocz and Połądze. The French landscape architect became famous throughout Europe for his work on the gardens at the Tuileries, the park at the Villa Borghese in Rome and the palace grounds in Luxembourg. The surviving accounts of the work carried out at Landwarów mention, amongst other things, the levelling of existing mounds and the creation of new ones, the transplanting of old trees and the introduction of new vegetation. A formal garden (with parterres forming intricate, ornamental patterns) was situated closest to the palace, whilst a landscape park was situated a little further away, with new trees planted on the opposite side of the lake and picturesque, winding footpaths laid out.

In the modern era: a chance to save the palace and its cultural heritage

In 2016, an auction was held, during which the palace and park complex in Landwarów was purchased by an entrepreneur who decided to revitalise the entire complex, comprising the 1,900 m² palace and a park covering more than 2.5 hectares. One of the aims of this ambitious project is to restore the garden layout in accordance with Édouard André’s designs. The palace itself will be adapted for new uses – the owner plans to create a museum, a café and a restaurant. Work began in 2018, funded by the owner’s own resources and a grant from the European Union. Thanks to the restoration, the building has a chance of survival – at the time of purchase, the palace required extensive renovation (the building’s deterioration was caused, amongst other things, by previous neglect and a fire that broke out in 2014). The building was in a poor state of repair: the damp walls, structural elements (particularly the rotten roof truss), façades with numerous damaged bricks and details, and the interiors were all in a state of disrepair. The investor’s approach proved commendable – the owner of the property made contact, amongst others, with people who remembered the palace before the damage suffered in recent decades. A search was also launched for original architectural details and furnishings. Objects originating from the Landwarów residence have been traced, for example, to museums in Warsaw, whose collections include doors and sculptures depicting the personifications of the winds, which originally adorned the balcony balustrades.

This project represents an opportunity to save a historic monument of exceptional cultural value. The significance of the palace and park complex in Landwarów is determined by a number of factors. The first group comprises aspects related to the Neo-Gothic architectural style – the scale of the project, the quality of its high-class details, and its alignment with the trends characteristic of the so-called late historicism period (in which inspirations drawn from various regions of Europe – including the Netherlands – were combined and creatively reworked). Of key importance, too, is the stature of the Tyszkiewicz family as the owners, the initiators of both reconstructions, and the collectors who brought works of art to Landwarów (including items that today belong to museum collections and stand as a testament to the development of nineteenth-culture). The uniqueness of the estate’s design was also reflected in the layout of the aforementioned garden by Édouard André – a designer who gained international recognition. The result of the transformations begun by Józef and completed by Władysław Tyszkiewicz was appreciated and admired from the very beginning, as evidenced by numerous textual and iconographic sources – including postcards, archival photographs of the building, the park grounds and the interiors of the residence.