Palace

(Drone photo credit: Maria Urbex Photography)

This is one of those rare occasions where I just can't convey the awesomeness of a place with my ground-level pictures, so I found a drone photographer that I liked, and asked them if I could borrow their image for the opener. 

I don't like doing things that way. The last time I did it was for the Mediterranean Sky Shipwreck. But I think we can all agree, it does help with this sort of place. Look at it! If this place doesn't make your face leap from your skull in disbelief, you're truly dead inside. 

The first thing anyone sees from street level is this gatehouse, deliciously unlocked and doing a terrible job protecting anything. There is graffiti on the upper floor but it's impossible to get there now. 

But no matter. We're not here for the gatehouse. 

I've really enjoyed researching Polish history during the course of this blog. I've covered wartime fortresses and the holocaust, and it is all interesting, but very serious and gritty, with the occasional splash of genocide.

 What we need is something to cheer us up, like some graffiti of a weird anthropomorphic kangaroo with boobies. 

Are you feeling turned on yet?

Beyond the gatehouse, this truly bonkers extravaganza just sprawls out. Photos don't so justice to how big it is. This was the first abandoned place in Poland that I'd ever become aware of, and arguably my main incentive for coming. It was amazing to finally see it in person. 

The palace is the creation of a man named Piotr Kazimierczak. He was a sculptor by trade but also ran a furniture business with over a hundred employees, giving him a nice mix of business-savviness and creativity. It's a curious blend. Usually the people who climb the corporate ladder are the first to tell people in the creative arts to get a real job. 

But this has an interesting twist. Piotr had been envisioning this palace since his youth and had actually set up his furniture business specifically to fund the construction. He was a man with a plan.

I have a photo of him with one of his sculptures, for anyone interested. 

(Piotr Kazimierczak. Photo not mine, obviously)

He's undeniably talented. Given that my dyspraxia has gifted me with all the fine motor skills of a satsuma, I'm always impressed that a human hand can create something like this. That's incredible. 

Being the creative sort, it shouldn't surprise anyone that Piotr's architectural taste would also be riddled with symbolism. There are twelve towers on the palace, which some say are to represent the twelve apostles. However, more reliable sources point out that there are 365 windows, representing the number of days in a year, and 52 rooms to represent the number of weeks. It makes more sense that twelve towers represent twelve months. 

 Allegedly the the palace was inspired by the Krzyztopor Ossolinski Castle in Southern Poland. I don't see any similarities aesthetically, but that castle is star-shaped, so I think any inspiration is more in the freedom of expression. Piotr presumably looked at it and decided that he could make something bonkers too. 

From down here it's all a bit overwhelming for someone who doesn't want to miss anything. 

One source says that construction began in 1979, but the majority of Polish articles claim that it was in 1983. One thing everyone can agree on is that  Piotr Kazimierczak exceeded the legal parameters for his dream building.

He was granted permission to build a "family home and sculpture studio" with a maximum of 170 square meters. This beautiful anomaly is about five thousand square meters, and includes a ballroom and a swimming pool, and expands onto land that Piotr did not have permission to build on. 

How he managed to get this far before anyone noticed is anyone's guess, but given that it was the Soviet government, they were probably just too busy collapsing. 

Piotr's troubles began in 1991 when the local power plant stopped providing energy to his construction site. The condition for resuming his supply was that he have a transformer station built on the land. But when officials came around to inspect the land for suitability, they reported back to the relevant people that Piotr had in fact illegally built a ginormous fucking palace. They told him to knock that shit off, and the bank demanded he pay back all of his loans, which were pretty chunky.

 As a result his company couldn't continue any large-scale furniture production, and had to cancel several lucrative contracts. He went bankrupt. So now not only had construction been stopped by the authorities, but he also had no money.  

In 1994, with the palace half-finished and doing nothing, Piotr's creditors attempted to seize the property to pay off his debts, but because the whole site is valued at several million, and required millions more to finish it, there was no buyer, so that went nowhere. 

Which is fine for people like me (overgrown children forced to live the life of an adult) but it sucks for Piotr. He was in the wrong, but when faced with projects of this magnitude you can't help but back the underdog. Especially when the government who granted him permission to build a house was the Soviet Union. Who cares what they think?

Before we slip inside, I have also hunted down a vertical drone shot. I can't remember who I yoinked this from, but I will give full credit if they reveal themselves. The reason I'm posting it is because I think it will help convey to you the layout of everything as I make my way around, and hopefully take some strain off our sense of direction. 

(Image not mine, but doodled on by me, sorry)

So here's the journey so far. We'll be trekking from the gatehouse to the entrance in the palace's central block. 

Time to slip inside...

Already it's a tad overwhelming, with staircases and passageways going off all over the place. 

That circular thing is allegedly a fountain, which kinda gives an idea of what sort of vibe this place would have had. Obviously it's very bleak now, but Piotr did have dreams of elegance and grandeur. 

The fountain does look very Soviet though, but it was the Soviet era when construction started, so it does make sense. 

This room is at the base of one of the towers, giving it that circular corner that kinda gives it a cosy vibe. I'm picturing a little corner seating area in a sculpture museum where people can just chill with their wine. 

Imagine this finished, providing access to an awesome garden. 

Moving on upstairs, things only get more extravagant.

There is a level of sadness to this place that doesn't come with most urbex places. My partner said something that stuck with me when we went around Beaumaris Castle in Anglesey (real tourism! Aaaaaah!!!!) and that was that part of the charm of old places is thinking back to all the good times that had been had there, and all the memories. We can't really do that with places that were never lived in. Instead all we have here is a labyrinth of broken dreams and lost potential, but no memories. It's a different kind of sadness. 

Piotr fully intends on finishing the palace someday. His main objective has always been to procure the funds to finish the job. In 1999 he managed to bounce back financially, running a sculpture studio where he made hand-carved furniture, crafting unique tables, chairs, bureaus, clock cases and pianos. Eventually he made enough money to start a furniture company once again, starting in 2000. But this time it was an act of God that provided the setbacks, when a huge flood wiped out his factory.

Too bad he didn't sculpt an ark.

The water level allegedly came to 2.5 meters, and caused millions worth in damage, destroying his state-of-the-art machinery and the computer system that controlled it. Worse, he found that his insurance only covered flooding from plumbing breakdowns, not natural flooding. He was ruined once again. 

Piotr still paid his staff to haul out the damaged equipment and the knee-deep sludge that the flood left in his factory, even though he couldn't really afford to, and he knew it would land him back in debt. In doing so, he gave them time to find new employment instead of just dismissing them outright.

And yet he hasn't given up on this palace. He says he's had a vision of it all his life, but what exactly he wants it to be is unknown even to him. In an interview he said that only upon completion would he decide what to do with it, but rather curiously he did confirm that he definitely wouldn't live in it.

 Some have speculated that this place will be a hotel, but Piotr dismisses the idea. He clearly doesn't want to waste such a project on something mundane. Perhaps the building is just a work of art in itself and doesn't need a practical purpose. It's a folly, albeit a massive one.

But such things are often misunderstood. Even the smallest of follies have had urbexers try to pin bonkers meaning to them, with innocent Georgian grottos being alleged to be used for devil worship and whatnot, when really eccentric rich people just wanted a fun place to sit. The idea of something just being art for the sake of art is an alien concept to some. 

I'm reminded of Scare Woods for some reason, and how so many people believed it to be a film set because they were too boring-minded to believe that it could be a scare attraction, just because they themselves didn't see the appeal of scare attractions and therefore why would someone build one? 

I'm applying the same logic to this place. When speculating about what it could be, people will naturally project what they would do if they had it. The commercially-minded might say hotel, but I'm inclined to think someone with such a creative mind might have something else up his sleeve. 

I'm trying to think what I would do with such a large space. The truth is, I could live comfortably here. My home is already a museum of eccentricities, but my aesthetic vastly differs from my partners, who is similarly introverted. So a large space would allow us both to spread out comfortably with shared communal space for both of us. This probably won't make sense to anyone who isn't an introvert, but it would be awesome. 

If this was mine, I'd almost definitely obscure some of these stairways and archways for the sake of having secret passageways. We'd absolutely have a library, but these hallways would also be lined with bookcases, and some of those bookcases would be doors. 

I'd also consider keeping some of the graffiti too. I'm not sure why this kitties entrails are becoming its extrails, or why they're sentient, but I love it. 

I'd probably turn rooms like this into little reading area, with comfy armchairs, a central coffee table and some plants. 

I quite like the graffiti in this tower. Someone has painted a huge fireball on the floor. 

In the early 2000s, having announced that he was bouncing back financially, Piotr had been required by the local council to submit construction documentation by July 2006, to prove that work was happening and to thereby justify the continued existence of his palace. But since he wasn't doing any construction, no documentation existed, and when the deadline passed the powers-that-be decided to demolish the place. 

There was a bit of back-and-forth. Like any ruling body in any country, they were grossly incompetent and hadn't actually sent any documentation to Piotr, so he contested the validity of their deadline. They maintained that the palace needed to be demolished, but at his own expense, threatening enforcement proceedings if he failed to do so. 

But there was a legal loophole. Having stood for more than twenty years, the structure had actually been legalised purely by the passing of time. It turns out that demolition orders on illegal structures had a time limit. 

With the palace saved, Piotr resolved that if he could get the money, he would resume construction. He still wanted to see his vision materialise, but by this point he was becoming more realistic, accepting that he might have to hand over the project to someone else, meaning it might become a hotel after all. 

How depressing. 

This room is huge. Perhaps this would have been the main room of the sculpture museum.

Grafiti of dogs forcing humans to fight. I kinda love that. 

On the top floor, it is possible to get out onto the roof. but it's unclear if this was going to be indoors eventually, or if it was going to be an outdoor area. 

If it was mine, I'd really love a little rooftop garden. 

From the roof of the central block, we have this awesome view of the furthest block. We'll do that bit last. 

In the upper floors we also have these little corridors leading off to smaller rooms. I'm really not sure what the purpose could be, beyond store rooms. I mean, they are the size of care home bedrooms but when you have the room to spread out, why limit yourself to sleeping in a cupboard?

This graffiti is absolutely amazing. 

I love the balconies on this place. The airbnb that I stayed at in Krakow had a nice balcony and it was honestly lovely watching the sunrise with a nice mug of coffee. We need more balconies. 

This tower has an angry ghost scrawled on the floor and I kinda love it. 

Here we have the elevator shaft. At some point someone decided to barricade it so that people didn't accidentally fall. 

It's still possible to lean over and look down. 

From here we also have an external view of the ballroom. 

Here we can see the walkway over to it. 

For the sake of confusion, I will re-include that vertical drone shot to show where we're at. 

(Photo not mine, but drawn on by me, soz)

Onto the ballroom!

It's pretty impressive. Think of all the events that never happened here.

There's a nice little balcony over there too. 

The ballrooms tower is pretty cool because someone has painted these hooded monks all along it. 

Above the ballroom, there's a cluster of smaller rooms, which I guess might have been used for guest accommodation or something, had the building been completed.

Apparently "Pachol" likes drawing traffic cones on walls. 

The upper floors are a bit flooded, the hallways are narrow, the rooms are small, and there's very few light sources beyond the rooms itself, making this the gloomiest part of the building so far. 

Here we have a view looking back at the rest of the palace, and you can see that one of the towers is actually flat on top. That's where I was standing when I pondered if it was a rooftop garden or unfinished. I think if it was mine, and I turned that into a rooftop garden, I'd probably complete the tower, aesthetically identical to the others, but have it like some sort of rooftop sitting area. 

On the other corner of the ballroom, we have a view facing down towards the main entrance. 

I'll add the aerial photo just so we can get our bearings. 

(Photo not mine, but drawn on by me, soz)

Something like that. 

Here we are on the balcony overlooking the ballroom. I guess it could be converted into a chapel too. 

And here we are looking back at the central block, with the walkway on the right. 

But before we head back across, we need to go down a level, because beneath the ballroom is the swimming pool!

Isn't this awesome? Kinda deep too. If someone fell in here they'd be stuck, if not for the pile of rubble in the corner that the wall scrawlers have been using. I'm quite tall and much prefer swimming pools when I can't touch the bottom, so this ticks all my boxes. If only it were finished. 

There's a staircase going down, under the swimming pool. 

It's kinda creepy down here. I heard the faint scurrying of rats, but I didn't see any unfortunately. 

Who the fuck is Pvt Moris Bob? Once Bob, Allways Bob, apparently. 

Back to the surface!

From the top of the central block it is possible to get a view of the gatehouse, and the rooftop of the next block. 

The graffiti scribbler sure seems proud of themselves for  managing to get to that part of the roof, even though it's a fairly straightforward stroll for anyone with a sense of balance. 

This is the walkway between the next and last block of the building. 

And here's the same walkway from a different angle. 

To understand these views, it's something like this:

(Image not mine, soz)

From the main central block, there's actually an underground tunnel to the next portions of the building, which sure is exciting!

There are some very large rooms down here, and we can kinda see a bit of architectural mishmash. We have an arched doorway connecting to a square room, and it looks a bit scruffy. So obviously this wasn't intended to have more aesthetic than practicality. My guess is it would have housed boilers, generators, that sort of thing. 

Here's the staircase back up to the surface, in the next block of the building. 

The rooms are smaller but still spacious. I think these could have been living quarters had Piotr changed his mind about living here, especially if the main block was the sculpture studio. Perhaps the final block could serve as a guest suite. 

It's kinda cool. There are circular rooms beneath the towers. and external balcony walkways. This would make a fantastic home even if it was just this block alone and not four connected chunks of awesomeness.

I could live comfortably with one block. But I'd insist on keeping at least two for the sake of having a swimming pool. 

Here's a view of the gatehouse. 

And this corridor brings us to the final stretch. We turn left here for the walkway to the last block, where the Grim Reaper awaits. 

Not at all ominous. If I looked for symbolism in life, I'd say this shadowy Death awaiting me represents the death of my love of urbex, for surely after experiencing this mad place, I won't be able to return home to the UK and enjoy our overabundance of dead grandma cottages in quite the same way. 

Well I think I've long graduated from the low hanging urbex fruit that is dead grandma cottages, anyway, but you get the idea. You could fit every abandoned house I've ever done in this palace. 

Sadly for the grim reaper this palace does not symbolise the death of my love of urbex. I'm too easily pleased. In 2018 I did Denbigh Mental Asylum and instantly followed it up with a tiny abandoned salon, and was still happier than Prince Andrew in a playground. I appreciate everything the world of urbex throws at me, big or small. 

This shot is looking back at the previous block. The archways on the far wall are the same ones where I said we'd be turning left onto the grim reaper walkway. 

There are a lot of smaller rooms on this block, which seem too plentiful to be storage but too small for anything else. Toilets maybe? 

Given that we're at the final leg of the adventure, there's not a lot more that can be said. 

Same awesome circular rooms in the tower.

Same awesome hooded monk graffiti. 

Same awesome spirals. 

This is the top of the spiral staircase, which is pretty cool. Although I'm not sure why you'd have a tiny platform at the top of a huge staircase.  All it's really good for is throwing things at people trying to come up the stairs. 

I'd probably put a little chair there with a teeny table, kettle, book and a spider plant for vibes. Turn it into a hidden chillout nook.

 

From here we can see the central block, with its flat roof and unfinished tower. It is kinda sad. Imagine how great this would have been if Piotr had been allowed to continue it. 

There is another chapter to the story of the palace, owing to its accidentally Hogwartsy appearance. 

Allegedly in 2014 a flock/herd/swarm (I don't know what the plural term is) of Harry Potter fans tried to purchase the building. 

Obviously they didn't, but I have to wonder what their intent was. What would Potter fans actually do with this? Roleplay? Cosplay photoshoots? Install gender segregated toilets?

I actually do have a rant about JK Rowling, who has become quite a fiery subject on the internet among people who only come online to tell other people how to live. But which political wing am I going to annoy today?

 I'm going to surprise everyone by shooting straight down the middle with something nobody talks about often enough, but I need to get off my chest. 

She didn't spearhead child literacy! 

All her defenders always say "she got a whole generation reading books!" Listen, that was my generation. I was there when Pottermania hit. You know why I missed it? Because I had my nose buried in Goosebumps, Animorphs, Horrible Histories, and the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. 

To be honest, I probably wouldn't have developed a love of history if not for Horrible Histories, which has now led to a history degree. It also means Horrible Histories is responsible for this blog, which is a fairly big flex for my generations literacy when I'm the only urbexer that doesn't just copy and paste from Wikipedia. 

Thank God JK Rowling got my generation reading, yeah? 

There is a happy ending for this palace. According to one source, in recent years the council have finally legalised the building and launched a development plan. Piotr can finally start bringing this place to life. 

And really, he's had a few decades to save money, so he should be able to get started pretty quickly. 

Finally, there are some steps down to the ground here, to an area that is under the building but has these big archways exposing it to the elements. I wonder if this would have been a carpark. Looking at the aerial image, it is possible to drive here from the gatehouse. 

I'll throw in the aerial photo again just in case anyone's sense of direction is frazzled.

(Photo not mine, but drawn on by me, soz)

I suppose that's all I've got. It's never balanced on this blog, is it? It's always dialogue heavy with barely any photos, or photo heavy with barely any history. 

Unfortunately this place spent nearly ten years as a construction site and then became more akin to a great big folly, so there isn't much to say. The graffiti certainly helps it. Some of it's shite but that's always the case. I'm happy to see some actual artists have come here. 

This was an itch to scratch, a great big tick in the box of my urbex bucket list, and now I can leave Poland satisfied.

But there's one more place to see before I get my flight. It's a depressing one, so I'll take a quick break from Poland to focus on my other blog and have a bit of fun.

In the meantime, if you like this blog and want to see more, then have a go at playing the algorithm! Follow me on Facebook and Instagram, and see how you get on with those cesspits. Alternatively people actually see who they choose to follow on apps like Vero, Cara and Bluesky, all pretty suitable alternatives to Instagram and Twitter, and do what those websites should be doing, albeit with a smaller userbase. That's only a bad thing if you only care about likes though. 

Thanks for reading!