The Abbot's Palace & Museum of Modern Art

ul. Cystersów 18 (Oliwa Park), Gdańsk , Oliwa (+48) 58 552 12 71 ext. 124 26 Sep 2024

Looking over the grounds of Gdańsk Oliwa's stunning parkland is one of the districts oldest and most regal-looking structures. Pałac Opatów (Abbot's Palace) dates back to the 15th century and continues to play an important cultural and administrative role in the maintenance of the surrounding flora!

**The Abbot's Palace & Museum of Modern Art** in Oliwa Park (Gdańsk Oliwa)

Although the exact historical origins of Oliwa’s delightful 10-hectare park are lost to time, it is known that the Cistercian Order cultivated these grounds from the 12th century to 1831, when the abbey was closed and its goods divvied up between the Free City of Gdańsk and the Prussian Empire. The park owes its current appearance to Oliwa’s last Cistercian Abbot, Jacek Rybiński, who contracted landscaper Kazimierz Dębiński in the late 18th century to design the park as we know it today, particularly the French Rococo garden in front of the Abbot's Palace.

**The Abbot's Palace** on the flank of Gdańsk Oliwa's district cathedral!

The Palace itself consists of two parts - The Old Palace, in Gothic style, dating back to the 15th century, and the New Palace, in Rococo style, dating from the early 17th century. Destroyed during WWII, but rebuilt in the 1960s, today the palace houses the Gdańsk National Museum's Modern Art collection, consisting of works by Polish artists from the 19th and 20th centuries (Matejko, Boznańska, Gierymski, Podkowiński, Malczewski and more), plus French artists (Georges Braque, Wassily Kandinsky and Marc Chagall), and over 65 works by Günter Grass. The palace also includes temporary exhibitions, as well as hosting concerts of early and contemporary music, readings, symposia and meetings with artists.

Average visiting time: 2hrs.

Gdańsk

The Abbot's Palace & Museum of Modern Art

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