Palace in Gładysze: A Baroque Dohna Manor Residence in Poland
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.4
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Poland
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Kingdom of Prussia
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Manor House
On this page14 sections
History
The Palace in Gładysze, also known as Schlodien, is a Baroque manor residence in Poland built between 1701 and 1704 for the Dohna-Schlodien family. Its design is attributed to the French architect Jean de Bodt, a Baroque architect who worked for European courts and aristocratic patrons, while construction was supervised by Johann Caspar Hindersin. The palace formed part of the representative architecture encouraged by Frederick I, the first King in Prussia, whose reign began in 1701 when Prussia became a kingdom.
The Dohna estate and the new palace
Gładysze had belonged to the Dohnas since 1643 and already contained a small residential manor. Christoph Burgrave and Count zu Dohna inherited the estate in 1688. As his social and professional position rose, and after a fire damaged the palace in nearby Morąg, he decided to establish a new residence at Gładysze.
The original plan placed the building on a hill near Quittainen. Lightning struck the foundations twice, however, and the project was moved to the present site of the earlier one-storey manor. Construction proceeded there from 1701 to 1704, producing the family’s new country residence.
Expansion and estate administration
The estate grew through the addition of service and residential buildings. By 1932, the Schlodien domain included four subsidiary estates, among them Carwinden. Its administration employed an estate director and a chief forester, and the holdings covered approximately 4,300 hectares, with a further 120 hectares leased at Klein Quittainen.
The Burgraves and Counts zu Dohna owned and occupied Schlodien until January 1945. After the Red Army captured the area, the previously intact palace was looted. The estate was then converted into a state agricultural farm. The palace served first as a grain store and later as a discotheque before a prolonged period of abandonment.
War damage, ruin, and reconstruction
After Wilhelm Christoph and Carl Emanuel zu Dohna-Schlodien were killed in the Second World War, their mother and sisters left the palace for Westphalia. The abandoned building was subsequently looted and vandalized. A collection of approximately 250 paintings was partly preserved in the Museum of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, while a larger portion of the furnishings was transferred to the Dohna residence in Morąg. Ancestral portraits are now displayed in museums in Olsztyn and Morąg.
On 17 July 1986, a fire left the palace in ruins, with its burned external walls remaining as part of the ruined complex. The Polish-German Foundation for the Protection of the Cultural Heritage of Warmia, based in Warsaw, sought to rebuild the palace and restore the park. Parts of the palace are protected as historic monuments under registration number G/59, dated 20 March 1963.
The estate and palace were acquired around 2010 by a German entrepreneur based in Poland. In summer 2017, the ruined palace was dismantled to cellar level, and a faithful reconstruction began using the historic cellars. The restoration of the exterior envelope was completed in 2020.
Remains
Palace structure and decoration
Exterior form
The palace was a relatively small, two-storey country residence with a flattened H-shaped plan and thirteen façade axes. Its Baroque exterior used brick with plaster strips and was covered by a slate mansard roof, a roof with two slopes on each side, the lower one generally steeper than the upper. A central projection marked the principal axis toward both the park and the approach.
The front façade included a three-axis pseudo-risalit, a shallow projection emphasizing the centre of a building, with Ionic pilasters and a triangular pediment. The pediment carried a Dohna heraldic cartouche, an ornamental framed panel displaying the family’s coat of arms. The exterior had a French character, while the interior reflected Dutch architectural influence.
Interior furnishings
Carl Florus zu Dohna contributed to the interior decoration with stucco work, fireplaces, and artistic woodwork. The furnishings included valuable Dutch furniture and paintings, Flemish tapestries, Chinese porcelains, and wall hangings painted with illusionistic architecture. The tiled hall contained life-size portraits of members of the Houses of Orange and Brederode.
An Orange Cabinet contained portraits in the style of Gerard van Honthorst. The collection of furnishings was described as a thematic counterpart to Huis ten Bosch, the palace of Amalia in The Hague. The historic cellars were incorporated into the reconstruction begun after the palace was dismantled to cellar level in 2017, and the exterior envelope was restored by 2020.
Estate buildings and agricultural features
Ancillary buildings
The palace complex included ancillary residential houses, gatehouses, a separate kitchen building, a coach house, stables, a manor church, and a mausoleum. The separate kitchen remained in use until 1945. Food was covered and carried across the intervening courtyard to the palace in both summer and winter. The associated buildings remained standing in a ruinous condition.
Outlying farm complex
An associated Vorwerk, meaning an agricultural outlying farm belonging to a larger estate, lay approximately 300 metres south-west of the palace grounds. It formed part of the wider estate organization rather than the principal residential complex.
Park and garden
Baroque Dutch garden
A Baroque park in the Dutch style originally surrounded the palace. Carl-Florus Dohna designed an enclosing canal with small projecting bastions, as well as additional canals that divided the garden into islands. A broad central avenue led from the garden into the forest. A greenhouse sheltered sensitive orange trees during winter, and a large orchard lay beside the park.
Landscape-park transformation
A wooden folk-style house containing a children’s playroom, a hunting lodge, and a Chinese-style tea house were added during the transition from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century. Around 1800, the park was redesigned as an English landscape garden. Johann Larass directed a comprehensive transformation in 1867 and 1868. The regular Baroque arrangement was retained near the palace, while the wider grounds became a Romantic landscape park with six ponds.
An orangery, a building designed to shelter citrus and other frost-sensitive plants in winter, was added to the palace in 1858. It was later adapted as a dining room for summer use.
