The history

Zielona Góra’s Palm House is a jewel, and not only on account of its unique and lush display of exotic plants. First and foremost, it is woven into the fabric of the city’s history and traditions. Vine Park, in which it stands, is bordered to the south by a historical industrial complex which once housed the Polish Wool textile factory and now serves as a large shopping centre. To the south-east, there is an historical family home which dates back to the early 20th century. To the north-east lies an area devoted to the provision of a range of services and facilities, along with the park administration and a large car park, while to the south, there are residential buildings, together with local shops and services.
Yet it is not by chance that the Palm House was built on Vine Hill.

The history of winemaking on this land is believed to stretch back over 860 years. This, at least, is what later German chroniclers were to maintain, recording that the first grapevines were planted around Zielona Góra circa 1150. But there are no primary sources documenting this. There is only tradition and… the grand and ebullient 700th and 750th anniversary celebrations, held in 1850 and 1900, respectively. By the 19th century, the city was surrounded by vineyards on every side. They were well nigh everywhere. This was a great winemaking centre, with dozens of small vineyards and several large wineries renowned throughout Germany, of which the city found itself a part following the Partitions. Zielona Góra’s winemakers erected special buildings in their vineyards. Known as ‘winemakers’ cottages’, there were over 700 of them, used for storing harvests, barrels, tools and equipment. Only a few have survived to this day. One of them is the Grempler House, erected on Vine Mountain in 1818. And it was right by this that the Palm House was built.

August Grempler is a significant figure in the history of Zielona Góra. In 1826, he and his two partners set up the first winery in Germany producing sparkling wine. In the early days, it was made using apples, with the changeover to grapes being made a few years later. Over the years, the Grempler winery became the largest in the city. And the most renowned. By the 1920s, the company was employing around 50 people and producing approximately 250,000 bottles of sparkling wine annually; by the late 1930s, this had risen to 800,000. Production continued after 1945 until the raw materials Gempler had stocked ran out.

The vineyard went bankrupt at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

On 13th September, 1945, the vineyard on Vine Mountain was taken over by Grzegorz Zarugiewicz, a towering figure in the post-war world of winemaking in Zielona Góra. He was a winemaking instructor and, between 1946 and 1954, he served as the technical director of the former Grempler winery, by then known as the Lubusz Winery, and was responsible for its vineyards. He co-founded the Zielona Góra Fruit-Growing and Winemaking Technical School, where he ran the practical vocational training programme. In 1993, the small street that runs by the front of the Palm House was named in his honour.

There is one other much-loved site on Vine Mountain. On the steps leading to the summit from Wrocławska Street, there stands a statue portraying a boy with a konik, the semi-wild horses of Poland who have the blood of the now-extinct European wild horse in their veins. The ears of this konik gleam, polished by the hands of hundreds upon hundreds of the city’s smallest residents clambering onto his back and clinging to his ears whilst having their photo taken. And it has been thus for generations.

The sculpture was created by Józef Thorak for an exhibition held during the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games.

Today’s Palm House in the building’s fifth incarnation. Zielona Góra’s flagship establishment has changed that many times.

August Grempler can certainly never have dreamed that almost 140 years after he built a ‘cottage’ to house his barrels and winemaking equipment, a greenhouse abundant with palms would be built alongside. Yet that is exactly what happened in 1961. Prior to this, the winemaker’s house had passed into the ownership of the institution charged with tending the city’s greenery. A club was set up there for municipal employees. It caught on to such an extent that, in January 1961, work started on erecting a small greenhouse to the rear of the building. All the municipal organisations took part in the enterprise. However, this was no normal greenhouse designed for bringing on early fruit and vegetables. The word was already out; it was going to be a highly unusual place for a get-together. The first Palm House was modest in size, its width the same as that of the ‘cottage’s’ masonry wall. In those days, the palms, too, were short in stature. In total, it covered an area of around 220 square metres. The café opened its doors for the first time on 1st May 1961.

The Palm House made its way straight to the hearts of locals and visitors alike, becoming the best-known place in the city.

Before long, it became evident that the building was too small. In 1964, the decision was taken to add a wing on the Podgórna Street side. That summer, the greenhouse structures were reinforced and the dance floor was extended. In the autumn, a covered glass construction measuring 40 metres by twelve was added, along with a fountain in front of the entrance, the only one in the city. The new space was considerably larger and higher than the first greenhouse and the café and restaurant capacity rose from 80 to 230.

In short order it transpired that the two spaces were insufficient. In particular, the number of couples the modest dance floor could accommodate was limited. The decision came. Further extension was the order of the day. This time it would be carried out on the other side of the older greenhouse. The autumn of 1967 saw building work begin on a new steel structure. The topping-out ceremony was held in mid-January 1968, after which the builders were only waiting for the weather to improve in order to set about glazing the walls and ceiling.
By the summer, the new section was ready. Approximately half the work had been carried out on a voluntary basis. Now, at last, visitors could avail themselves of a spacious dance hall and enjoy the gastronomic delights emerging from the newly-built kitchens.

Given the treasures of plant life housed in the disintegrating structure, demolition and the erection of a new building in its stead was out of the question. There was nothing else for it. Rebuilding work was required and it would have to arrange a new structure for the old Palm House. And thus the building survived, with pillars and a roof being erected on the outside.

Only once this new structure had been glazed could the old one be disassembled. No heavy equipment could be used, because hoists and cranes now had no access to the interior.

All the demolition work was carried out manually. A helping hand was lent by an army unit stationed in Czerwieńsk.
A café seating 150 was created, the layout of the plants and the colour scheme were designed by Witold Nowicki and everything was ready in time for the grape harvest of 1985.

In 2006, there came, yet again, a decision came to extend the Palm House. This time, it was triggered primarily by a date palm which had extended a frond or two beyond the roof. A new space was built alongside the old, just as it had been 20 years previously. Now, though, the work moved ahead more rapidly; the plants were protected with foil and heating was provided for them.

The new Palm House, with grand viewing terraces, was ready in July 2008, a completely different building from the one which was raised 50 years earlier and with the main entrance now on the Zarugiewicz side.

The round forecourt is graced by a magnificent fountain. Created in black granite, it takes the form of a floating sphere engraved with a map of the world.

As visitors cross the threshold, they are greeted by a statue of Bacchus.

As ever, good food and drink can be relished here and visitors can dance the night away and admire the views of the surrounding area from on high, since the restaurant and café are generally open to all. The Palm House currently houses around 150 species of equatorial and tropical plants, shrubs and trees.

The building’s newly extend interior space allows the flora to continue flourishing uninhibited.
Moreover, the restaurant’s capacity has increased, the café has been opened, a mezzanine, a gallery and a viewing terrace have been introduced and a new aquarium, considerably larger than its predecessors, has been installed, as have an illuminated waterfall and a brook which babbles through the entrance hall.

The waterfall created in the right-hand section tumbles from beneath the roof of the conference room, cascading through openings in the upper storey and plunging into a basin in the hallway, from whence flows the brook, winding its way through a channel under the stairway, cutting across the entrance to the restaurant and onward, passing the hall and running out of the building, where it feeds the fountain in the forecourt.

Another gallery, reached from the depths of the café forms the first viewing level, offering spreading scenes of both the interior and the surrounding landscapes.

Heading on upwards, we come to the footbridge which runs the full length of the Palm House, right through the centre of the building. Then comes the mezzanine, with a small viewing platform and a unit for planting and for housing convalescent plants.

Higher still, under the glass copula, is the last of the viewing terraces, which runs around three sides of the dome.

The ground floor section of the Palm House is home to a thriving Canary date palm. A range of sources suggest that it is the largest of its kind in Europe to be growing under a roof. This was the tree which, amongst other considerations, gave rise to the decision to carry out the most recent modernisation.

The highest viewing point gives the public the opportunity to admire a panoramic view of the city from a height of around 20 metres.

One intriguing part of the Palm House is the nook devoted to a display of several dozen varieties of cacti, with a mighty agave in their midst.

In its present incarnation, the Palm House offers visitors an additional attraction in the form of its seven aquariums, with their teeming varieties of inhabitants. The largest of these holds around ten thousand litres, or almost twenty-two thousand gallons, of water. This is where the biggest fish reside; the sheatfish, the Atlantic and Gulf sturgeon, the African sharptooth catfish, the tench, the piranha and the red-tailed catfish, to name but a few.

There many more attractions to be enjoyed at the Palm House and many other fascinating spots to be visited, some of which are shown in the following photos:

The Palm House and all that it holds are most certainly worth seeing. So why not enjoy a tropical sensation… if even if only for a while…

Following the most recent modernisation of 2006-2008, the technical parameters of the Palm House are:

Cubic capacity: 23,530.80 m³
Usable area: 3,357.98 m²
Length: 62.58 m
Width: 43.80 m
Total above-ground height: 20.48 m

Tłumaczenie :
GTsolutions Szymon Jaskuła