The permanent seat of ECSO will be located in a barn from 1857, located in the northern part of the Sarny Castle farm. Its original wooden structure supports a 1,400-square-metre roof! The building is partially built on solid rock and has an upper and lower level.
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The barn has almost 1,000 m2 of space, which will be divided into three main zones: a reception zone with a shop and a café, an exhibition zone and an education zone with an auditorium carved into the rock and a column workshop room.
The exhibition will tell the story of Silesia’s gardens from the Middle Ages till modern times. Its most important motifs will include the cultural history of gardens, craft, engineering and garden design, the techniques of gardeners and designers and the types of garden layouts. The narration will be illustrated by thorough spatial composition analyses and dioramas of the most valuable sites and parts of their features, such as the Laurentius Scholz garden in Wrocław, the Cistercian abbey in Lubiąż, parks at Kamieniec Ząbkowicki, Moszna and Muskau and the Centennial Hall exhibition grounds in Wrocław.
Another part of the exhibition will be devoted to Eduard Petzold’s life, with particular emphasis on his design workshop and his achievements and contribution to European garden art. The building will also have a gallery for temporary exhibitions.
The ECSO is an integral part of the historic castle and park, which boasts an area of 5.18 ha. It consists of a castle foreground, the southern courtyard, a meadow by the Swiss House, a farm and a landscape park. They will be used as educational and workshop spaces for outdoor activities. Since 2014, the park and its surroundings is under the ongoing restoration according to the conservation programme made by Łukasz Przybylak, the co-founder of the Centre and the designer of Hortus Excelsior.
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View of the Sarny Castle from the pond by the Summer Palace, 1929, Herder Institut, inv. no. 77086.
An important part of the work will be the reopening of the views of the surrounding landscape and the reconstruction of historic bridges over the Włodzica River. The rest of the site will be supplemented with new arrangements that reference its tradition. A decorative fountain and plantings of perennials, shrubs and trees will appear in the farm yard. The meadow next to the Swiss House will become a kitchen garden, which will provide fresh vegetables and herbs to the restaurant, as well as flowers to decorate the interior of the castle and the hotel. A vineyard, an orchard and a small campground are planned in the castle foreground.
