Pałac Mniszchów

Did the elegant neoclassical facade of Pałac Mniszchów ever fool you? This palace, here on Senatorska Street, hides a vibrant, sometimes turbulent past. It started modestly in 1620 as a wooden mansion for a royal cupbearer. By 1692, it evolved into a brick baroque palace thanks to Feliks Aleksander Lipski. The name “Pałac Mniszchów” arrived in 1714 with its new owner, Jόzef Wandalin Mniszech, Grand Marshal of the Crown. Think of 1788, with hot air balloons rising from the palace gardens. This was Poland’s first hot air balloon flight, a spectacle orchestrated by Jan Potocki, a future owner of Pałac Mniszchów. Sadly, fire ravaged the palace at the end of the 18th century. The Potocki family then sold it to Friedrich Wilhelm Mosqua and his wife in 1805. They hired architect Fryderyk Albert Lessel, who transformed the baroque palace into the neoclassical masterpiece we see today. The 19th and 20th centuries saw Pałac Mniszchów serve as a hospital for Napoleonic troops, a theater for marionettes and French plays, and finally the home of the ‘Société des Marchands’. This society, active from 1829 to 1940, brought together entrepreneurs, doctors, lawyers, merchants, and artists. The Order of Malta turned it back into a hospital in 1940, only for the German forces to burn it down in 1944. The Kingdom of Belgium, needing a new embassy after the war, stepped in. Rumor has it that Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, an art lover, was charmed by the ruined Pałac Mniszchów and suggested its reconstruction. In 1962, after three years of work, the newly restored Pałac Mniszchów became the Belgian Embassy.