The Wilson Park
The History of The Wilson Park
1834 - on The Embroider Society's initiative a nursery of decorative bushes and trees is established within the area of Saint Łazarz parish near Poznań, today's Wilson Park area.
1904 - The Poznań municipal authorities turn the nursery into the Botanic Garden. The park's architect was H. Kube. It consisted of two distinctive parts – the irregular English style one with the pond, rock gardens and recreation peninsulas and the regular French style one, divided into floral fields and botanical collections.
1925 - The School Botanic Garden at Dąbrowskiego Street comes into being, the nowadays one gets its T. W. Wilson's name instead.
1931 - Unveiling the T. W. Wilson scuplure founded by I. J. Paderewski. The sculpturer was G. Borglum (during the Second World War the monument was destroyed).
1951 - The Park changes its name to The Marcin Kasprzak Park.
1980 - The Park is enlisted on the monuments register.
1988 - the Park restoration project is created that makes it possible to restore and enrich the Park architecture. On its basis, by 2004 a couple of tens of sizeable deciduous trees and conifers were planted, a little park architecture was restored and enriched which made The Wilson Park one of the most representative parks of Poznań.
1990 - The Wilson Park name is brought back.
1994 - Unveiling the bust of T. W. Wilson sculptured by Z. Trzcińska-Kamińska in 1928.
The Palm House
The Palm House History
1910-11 - The first 534 square metred Palm House is established. It consists of the central part where the palms are exhibited as well as two wings meant for the exhibition of the cacti and tropical plants.
1922 - the first aquarium section in Poland and a pavilion with a reservoir for Victoria regia as well as utilitarian plants section are established.
1928-29 - in connection with the Common Domestic Expo the second unit (the second palm house) is established. The Palm House consists of 7 different pavilions and overall area of 1964 square metres.
1939 - The Palm House is slightly destroyed in the course of forced actions.
1941 - The Palm House is impaired again by the heavy English bomb, part of the plants are destroyed by low temperatures.
1945 - hard impairment of The Palm House in the course of liberating Poznań, glass destruction up to 60%, almost whole collection of plants is destroyed.
1946 - The Palm House opens again – 5 sections, plants supplemented from the liquidated estates.
1961 - the aquarium section is established – junction to the fair hall replaced and adapted as pavilion – overall area 2528 sq m with 18 000 cu m.
1978 - due to inferior technical condition, The Palm House shuts down for visitors.
1982 - decision on building a new greenhouse over the previous one, the method makes it possible to preserve the collection of plants.
1992 - completion of construction work. The New Palm House is of 4600 sq. m. area and 46 000 cu. m. capacity. It consists of 10 exhibition pavilions (including the aquarium) as well as two background pavilions.
01.10.1992 - The third Poznań Palm House opens for visitors.
1998 - the water conditioning station is established which secures The Palm House for the water with optimum parameters for tropical plants growing.
2000 - boiler house modernization, as an effect a constant and steady temperatures were obtained in the pavilions as well as the air pollution was reduced.
2001-02 - mist-installation is established that keeps the needed humidity and makes it possible to grow very demanding tropical plants.
2003 - an additional pavilion of educational and service character is established and included within the visitors area (220 sq. m. area), playing also a role of coffee shop.
2003 - In the administration building a conference room is established. It is joined with pavilion no 1, furnished with indispensable technical equipment (air-conditioning, multimedia system).
By 2011 The palm House used the following logo:
Aquarium
The Aquarium History
1922 - the first public aquarium in Poland is established in The Poznań Palm House. There were 10 species of fish in 10 reservoirs of overall capacity of 1620 litres. The systematic development broke by The Second World War. At the burst – the aquarium all reservoirs capacity is already 5000 litres.
1961 – a breakthrough in the history of this building. Construction of a new aquarium started. Two years later the building has already 50 reservoirs, each of 100 litres capacity. The exposition consists of 111 fish species and an interesting water plants collection.
1978-1992 – development of The Poznań Palm House and a new aquarium construction. Nowadays it consists of 37 exhibition reservoirs of overall capacity of 59000 litres. There are also approx. 100 breeding reservoirs at the background where the plants and the fish are reproduced or quarantined.
