Barbican: ul. Nowomiejska
Warsaw Old Town still carries some of the remains of the original medieval military fortifications that used to protect the Polish capital. Most of walls and towers that remain scattered around Warsaw were constructed from the 14th century to mid- 16th century. Original Warsaw city wall had two curtains of walls reinforced with towers and small fortresses. One of the best preserved of medieval fortifications is the Barbican. It was constructed in 1548 by Gianbattista of Venice, Italy. It has an appearance of a small fortress intended to defend Nowomiejska Gate (in Polish Brama Nowomiejska). Dungeon of Barbican is defended by four semicircular towers on all four sides. Most of current structure that you can see today were actually erected after World War II using medieval ruins as a guide and base for modern walls and towers. It is hard to say how historic the appearance of the military fortifications are, but it adds a nice touch of authenticity to this old medieval European city.
The first line of walls
Work on the construction of the first
sections of the Warsaw defensive walls probably began around 1280 under
the Masovian prince Konrad II, and was completed under Bolesław II and
Trojden I. The earliest written document about the walls comes from
1326, in the privilege of the priest of St. John is described as "the
parish priest of the church within the walls of Warsaw". They were also
exchanged in 1339 during the acceptance by the papal legates of Warsaw
as the place of the Polish-Teutonic trial. According to the trial files,
Warsaw is “a safe place surrounded by a wall”.
The first brick
fragments of the embankments are the New Town Gate (the north-western
part of the embankments from the side of the later New Town) and the
Kraków Gate (the southern part - the area of Castle Square). The first
section of the walls, about 300 meters long, was erected between the
Kraków Gate and Wąski Dunaj Street, together with the Knight's Tower. In
the mid-fourteenth century, a wall was surrounded by a fragment between
the Narrow Danube and the New Town Gate and further towards the Vistula.
After 1379, the construction of a wall from the side of the Vistula
River from the Castle to the Marshal's Tower in the northern part of the
city began. The privilege issued on November 23, 1379 by prince Janusz I
obliges the inhabitants to surround Warsaw with a wall in such a way
that the city is closed within their ring. In total, the walls, about
1,200 meters long, enclosed an area of about 8.5 ha.
The
defensive walls included not only walls, but also towers and towers:
Krakow Gate
The Knight's Tower
Side Gate
The New Town Gate with
a gate neck and the later Barbican
The White Tower with a wicket
Dung Tower with a gate
Marshal's Tower (the highest)
Grodzka
(castle) Tower
Court (castle) Tower
The Powder Tower
Crane
Tower (Żóraw - castle area).
All Warsaw towers had a rectangular
shape, except for Biała (polygonal) and Marszałkowska (round).
The second wall line and the Barbican
Already in the fifteenth
century, these fortifications seemed insufficient, so the construction
of the second line of walls from the Castle to the Marshal's Tower
began, in accordance with the decision contained in the privilege of
prince Janusz I of 1413. At a distance of 9 to 14 meters from the
original wall line, a second, lower line of walls was erected between
the mid-15th and the beginning of the 16th century. The difference in
height between the top of the second line and the arrowslits in the
first line was about 4 meters, and to obtain a similar height of the
walls to the ground of about 8.5 meters, a moat about 4 meters deep was
dug in front of the second line. The thickness of the wall in the old
embankment was 1.2 meters, while in the new one - 1.8 meters. The
smaller height of the wall allowed not only to use artillery, but also
to hit the enemy from 2 levels of the walls at the same time. In the
event that the outer line of the walls was seized by the enemy, it was
still possible to defend oneself and strike the enemy's positions from
above.
Digging a moat required the construction of bridges - one
of them was built at the New Town Gate, transformed in 1548 into the
Barbican (the last element of the walls to be built), and the other at
the Kraków Gate (Castle Square, unveiled in the 1980s). Already in the
16th century, these fortifications were obsolete due to the development
of artillery and the Barbican itself did not have much military
significance, despite the location of the entrance at an angle to Freta
Street running from the New Town to the gate. As early as in the 14th
century, the settlement in the Warsaw area was outside the city walls,
which turned out to be too tight for the new population.
Losing
relevance
In the years 1621–1624, a new belt of earth-bastion
fortifications, the so-called Zygmunt's Embankment, which was already
far away from the city walls. The rapidly developing buildings of the
city absorbed not only the city walls, but also the Zygmunt's
Embankment, which was not preserved and useless, soon disappeared from
the city's landscape. During the Swedish Deluge, the walls were damaged,
which were not repaired later, and during this period they also played a
military role for the last time. The walls were not taken care of
anymore, as they no longer had a defensive significance, and more
hindered the development of the city.
In the 17th century, the
demolition of the walls slowly began, and new passages were also made
for convenience, although the gates and towers were still in good
condition. In the 18th century, buildings were adjacent to the walls,
initially wooden, and in the 19th century they were replaced by tenement
houses. Even in the eighteenth century, Warsaw was surrounded by new
embankments - the so-called Lubomirski trenches, which were a sanitary
cordon around the city. In the 19th century, the city gates were also
destroyed, as they were too narrow for the needs. In the second half of
the 19th century, the walls were almost completely covered with
outbuildings and tenement houses.
The role of the fortifications defending the city was taken over by
the fortification works in the suburbs - erected during the Kościuszko
Uprising, and later in the 19th century during the Duchy of Warsaw and
the November Uprising, and finally the ring of forts with the citadel
making up the Warsaw Fortress, erected during the Congress Kingdom.
Renovation
The first attempts at restoration were undertaken in
1936 under the leadership of Jan Zachwatowicz on the initiative of the
city board. An attempt to unveil the walls covered the fragment between
the Side Gate (Narrow Danube) and the Barbican, during which the moat
was excavated and the buildings removed.
The fragments of the
walls, reconstructed in the 1930s, survived the Second World War. After
the war, the works resumed and, paradoxically, they were facilitated by
the destruction of the Old Town. The first works began in 1949. In the
years 1950–1955 efforts were made to rebuild the entire fortifications.
During this period, among others, Barbican and Powder Tower. However,
this method of author's reconstruction aroused controversy without being
backed by sources. In the years 1957–1963, efforts were made to only
visualize the preserved fragments through their renovation, not
reconstruction.
The last stage of conservation work was the
excavation of a brick bridge over the moat from under the pavement of
the Castle Square, leading to the former Kraków Tower. The square has
stripes of clinker bricks showing the former route of the double line of
walls. Since 1996, conservation works have been carried out to improve
the technical condition of the walls, including The facilities rebuilt
in the 1950s were also renovated. The scope of works included
strengthening of the wall support zone on a stone footing, strengthening
the structure of the above-ground part, elimination of surface buckling,
protection of the wall crown, renovation of façade surfaces -
elimination of salinations and algae, replacement of joints.
In
2007–2009 the walls were thoroughly renovated. Their foundations were
dried, insulation against moisture was installed, brick structures were
cleaned and strengthened, and the wall illumination was installed with
296 floodlights placed in the ground (including 27 working in the
dynamic color change system). In 2009, Illumination received the
Jean-Paul L'Allier for the best project related to the revitalization
and conservation of an area inscribed on the UNESCO List.
In
April 2011, the pedestrian paths between the inner and outer defensive
walls were named after Piotr Biegański's zwinger (section from Zamkowy
Square to Piekarska Street) and Jan Zachwatowicz's zwinger (section from
Piekarska Street to the Vistula escarpment).
In the Barbican,
there is an exhibition of the Museum of Warsaw devoted to its defensive
walls.
Commemorative plaques on the defensive walls
On the
inner line of the walls, on the section between the former Kraków Gate
and the Side Gate, there are plaques commemorating:
József Antall
senior
Maria Konopnicka
Casimira Delavigne
Bernardo Bellotto
Wiktor Gomulicki
Soldiers of the Home Army Battalion "Gustaw"
Important objects within the walls
Jan Kiliński Monument
Monument
to the Little Insurgent
Sculpture of Oświęcim II
Two Tchorka
memorial plaques (on the inner wall and at Wąski Dunaj 7 street)