Historic Lwow Relief Panorama, Centennial Hall
The panorama is an extremely precise representation of 18th-century Lwow.
The Historic Lwow Relief Panorama is a unique architectural model and a lifetime achievement of Janusz Witwicki, MEng.
The panorama is an extremely precise representation of 18th-century Lwow, which is now available in a modern display featuring touch screens, a virtual reconstruction of Lwow, a hologram and a multimedia show.
The panorama of 18th-century Lwow features 300 minuscule buildings: houses, churches, gates and fortifications. The work on the panorama was launched in 1928 by architect Janusz Witwicki and his team.
The panorama was created on six boards, each of which 2 metres long and 1.2 metres high. Lwow was represented at a scale of 1 to 200. The buildings are made of cardboard, bristol and plywood, and are covered with copper and leaden sheets. Wire and celluloid were also used. Each architectural detail was rendered with utmost precision. Each chimney and each window were restored with great accuracy. The creators of the panorama also made the buildings look older by adding damp patches on the walls and holes in the plaster to give a real feel of the city.
The residents of Lwow were never to see the panorama of their beloved city. To add insult to injury, Soviet authorities were reluctant to allow Witwicki's work to leave the city after World War II.
Eventually, the consent was given, but the architect was never to leave for Poland. He was murdered in 1946 in unexplained circumstances. The work was transferred to Poland by his wife. The minuscule representation of Lwow first travelled to Warsaw to finally reach the Architecture Museum in Wrocław. The panorama was made available to the public in the 1990s. In 2006, Janusz Witwicki's family made a decision to bequeath the panorama to the Ossolineum Library.
You may want to combine a visit to the panorama with a tour of the Cognitive Centre, Centennial Hall (joint tickets available), a walk around Pergola, a sneak peek at the multimedia fountain show, a visit to the Japanese Garden, Szczytnicki Park and the ZOO.
