Topography of the 18th-century Rzeszów and its relics in the contemporary architectural and urban space of the city

Maciej Piekarski

doi:10.37190/arc230102

Abstract

One of the icons of Rzeszów is the 18th-century perspective view of the city, known as the Wiedemann plan. The view shows the buildings and topography of the city, which was then surrounded by a system of ponds and backwaters. All representative buildings have been preserved to this day, although in slightly changed forms. Ponds and backwaters do not exist. The study described in the article was aimed at finding traces of the shores of these water reservoirs in the modern topography of the city, which is very much transformed. Maps and aerial photographs from the times when traces of the 18th-century topography were more visible were used for this purpose. The content of cartographic sources was used by overlaying digital versions of maps: historical and current, calibrating the image using a pair of points belonging to two distant objects with unchanged shapes. The information contained in the photograph was verified by making analogous geometric constructions on the photograph and on the current map. The culmination of the study was an in-situ reconnaissance. Many still clear traces of the former topography were found in the area, which may be imperceptible to an outside observer. The obtained results introduce a correction to the Wiedemann’s plan, which mapped the spatial structure of the city partly incorrectly. They supplement the knowledge base about Rzeszów, which does not sufficiently cover spatial and urban issues. They draw attention to the ignored element of the urban cultural landscape, which is the topography, often insufficiently protected.

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2023

1(73)

Maciej Piekarski*

Topography of the 18

-century Rzeszów and its relics

in the contemporary architectural and urban space of the city

Introduction

The increased interest in regional history is one of the

current eects of civilizational development. Populariza-

tion of tourism resulting from the increase in the level of

education and wealth of the society is an important stim-

ulator. The self-promotion undertaken by local authorities

in order to compete for permanent residents constitutes an

extra motivation. The progress in the eld of digital tech-

nologies, which facilitates the dissemination of archives,

including by means of tools presenting their content in an

accessible and suggestive way, is one more catalyst for

this trend. Unfortunately, digital tools introduce a distance

between the place where the content is received and the

places pictured, which makes dicult to assess the mes-

sage. Undoubtedly, confrontation of historical content di-

rectly in the place of its creation has the greatest value.

Historical development of Rzeszów

Rzeszów is perceived as a new, dynamically develop-

ing city. Meanwhile, the documented history of the city

dates back to the 14

century. The views on the existence

of an earlier settlement in the place where Kazimierz

Wiel ki [Casimir the Great] founded the city in 1354 are

contradictory [1]–[4]. Also, the history of the early spatial

development of Rze szów is known only in outline [1]–[6],

mainly on the basis of the results of archaeological re-

search, because only one architectural object of medieval

origin has survived – the parish church of St. Wojciech

and Stanisław. In the early period of development, Rze-

szów covered the area of the present Market Square with

its adjacent areas, the parish church and the areas between

them. The convenient location of the city resulted from the

east-west communication route running through it and the

backwaters of the Wisłok River and the Mikośka Stream.

The rapid population growth prompted one of the owners

of Rzeszów, Mikołaj Rzeszowski, to locate, in the 16

centu-

, directly to the north-east of then Rzeszów, the so-called

Nowe Miasto, a separate settlement inhabited mostly by

the Jewish community. The Nowe Miasto occupied the

space of the present Wolności Square and the buildings

surrounding it. The location of a fortied manor house in

the southern direction, occupying a dierent hill among

the backwaters of Wisłok and Mikośka, was the impulse

for further spatial development of Rzeszów. The manor

house, and later the castle, was connected to the city by

a road constituting the archetype of the main composi-

tional axis of historic Rzeszów, which is today’s 3 Maja

Street. The area around this road was building up gradu-

ally. In the years 1624–1629, Mikołaj Spytek Ligęza built

a Bernardine complex located north-west of the borders

of medieval Rzeszów, which initiated the spatial develop-

ment of the city in that direction [2]–[5].

From 1638 until the 1

half of the 19

century, Rzeszów

was owned by the Lubomirski family, who expanded the

city, founding excellent institutions and buildings. They

brought the Piarists, who in 1658 founded the College in the

city – an educational institution that has been continuously

functioning to this day in changing forms. For the needs of

the Piarist Order, at the turn of the 17

and 18

centuries

they rebuilt the earlier building housing the church, monas-

tery and college, giving it an architectural form close to the

current one. The designer was Tylman from Gameren, who

also designed the so-called summer palace. In the vicinity

of the castle and the summer palace, gardens were estab-

lished and a manor farm, stables and a kennel were built, as

well as another church and monastery – of the Reformati.

DOI: 10.37190/arc230102

Published in open access. CC BY NC ND license

* ORCID: 0000-0002-9788-1099. Faculty of Civil and Environ-

mental Engineering and Architecture, Rzeszow University of Technolo-

gy, Poland, e-mail: mgpiekar@prz.edu.pl

18 Maciej Piekarski

The residence and the town were surrounded from the west

by a set of ponds forming with the backwaters of Wisłok

owing around them from the east [2]–[5], a specic sys-

tem of fortications.

The general layout of 18

-century Rzeszów is known

from the so-called Wiedemann plan. The drawing, the

original of which is kept in the District Museum in Rze-

szów, is an icon of the city. On its basis, in 2002, a mockup

presented in the Museum of the History of the City of

Rze szów was made, and in 2004, a mural was placed on

the wall of one of the tenement houses. In 2022, an excur-

sion route was opened in the basement under the Rzeszów

Market Square, in which, after renovation and retrotting,

a multimedia story about the history of the city is present-

ed. The narrative is woven around the theme of the “city

on water”, inspired by the Wiedemann’s plan. However,

the visualizations presented there are a free vision of their

creator, unsupported by knowledge about the actual spa-

tial conguration of the Rzeszów backwaters.

-century Rzeszów

in the legacy of Karol Henryk Wiedemann

Karol Henryk Wiedemann was a German military en-

gineer and architect who came to Rzeszów in 1728 where

he designed and supervised the construction and modern-

ization of all major buildings in the city for 40 years as the

court architect of the Lubomirski family. He is also cred-

ited with designing the spatial arrangement around the

castle and the summer palace. Wiedemann, apart from his

legacy of strictly engineering works, went down in history

as a talented graphic artist, leaving behind two views of

Rzeszów. The rst one is in the form of a triptych (Fig. 1),

the middle part of which shows the city in a perspective

view from the east, and the left and right parts – the sum-

mer palace with a garden layout and the castle, respec-

tively. The triptych was probably made in the 1730s. The

second view is the previously mentioned Wiedemann plan

from 1762. It presents the entire city in a perspective view

from the west (Fig. 2).

Previous researchers of the history of Rzeszów are full

of appreciation for Wiedemann’s precision and scrupulos-

ity expressed in the meticulous mapping of the city. Wie-

demann made his drawings in the times before the rst

balloon ight and the birth of photography. He relied only

on imagination constructing a bird’s-eye view of the city,

most likely not using geodetic measurements. The num-

ber of architectural objects in the view of Rzeszów from

1762 proves that he paid attention to details. However,

Wiedemann’s plan is burdened with errors leading to the

deformation of the image of the city. It seems that Wie-

demann began the construction of the view of Rzeszów

by determining the axis of Pijarska Street (now 3 Maja

Street), drawing it on the plane of the drawing as a hori-

zontal straight line, while the street, which has remained

unchanged to this day, is about halfway bent at an angle

of about 17°. Another mistake of Wiedemann was the in-

correct estimation of the length of the Piarist complex in

relation to the length of the entire Pijarska Street (Fig. 3a).

Although the school wing was shorter in his times than

it is today, the length ratio measured on the view from

1762 is greater than the ratio calculated on the basis of

measurements from the current map, taking into account

the extension of the school wing made in 1835 (Fig. 3b).

As a result of these mistakes, the image of the western part

of the city, including the ponds and the castle farm build-

ings, was signicantly deformed. The gardens located at

the back of the Piarist complex occupied on the drawing

a larger area than they actually did, and due to the lack of

space for a proper mapping of the later Różana Street (not

preserved to this day) and the buildings located along it,

its course was presented inconsistently with the facts. One

can discern Wiedemann’s conscientiousness, manifest-

ed in an internal order to count and show all the existing

buildings in the city, but other details of the drawings of

Rzeszów undermine the myth of his extraordinary accura-

cy or correct it with the conclusion that it was adequate to

the standards of the epoch.

The central part of the triptych shows a view of Rze-

szów, on which all signicant buildings of the city are

Fig. 1. Rzeszów triptych made by K.H. Wiedemann,

probably in the 1730s

(source: District Museum in Rzeszów, sign. MRH 2558)

Il. 1. Tryptyk rzeszowski wykonany przez K.H. Wiedemanna przypuszczalnie w latach 30. XVIII w.

(źródło: Muzeum Okręgowe w Rzeszowie, sygn. MRH 2558)

Topography of the 18

-century Rzeszów and its relics in the contemporary architectural and urban space of the city 19

Fig. 2. Perspective view of Rzeszów made by K.H. Wiedemann in 1762

(source: District Museum in Rzeszów, sign. MRH 2557)

Il. 2. Widok perspektywiczny Rzeszowa wykonany przez K.H. Wiedemanna w roku 1762

(źródło: Muzeum Okręgowe w Rzeszowie, sygn. MRH 2557)

Fig. 3. Spatial characteristics of Pijarska / 3 Maja Street:

a) on Wiedemann’s plan, b) on the current map (elaborated by M. Piekarski)

Il. 3. Charakterystyka przestrzenna ul. Pijarskiej / 3 Maja:

a) na planie Wiedemanna, b) na aktualnej mapie (oprac. M. Piekarski)

a b

20 Maciej Piekarski

the development of individual plots. Due to the imperfec-

tion of Wiedemann’s plan, as well as buildings extended

far beyond the area built-up in the 18

century and the in-

signicant dierences in the terrain ordinates, the research

was aimed at nding in current space any traces of the for-

mer terrain conguration, especially related to the location

of ponds. It was assumed that based on the ndings made,

conclusions will be formulated as to the impact of indivi-

dual urban planning activities undertaken in later times on

the change of this conguration. These conclusions could

be interpreted in a broader than local scope.

It was decided that due to the non-obvious connection

between the image of the city presented on Wiedemann’s

plan and the contemporary urban space of Rzeszów,

preserved documents from the intermediate periods, i.e.

maps, photographs and urban designs, will be analysed.

Topographic maps from the end of the 18

century to the

beginning of the 20

century, available online [11]–[13]

were obtained, as well as cadastral plans available in the

resources of the State Archives in Rzeszów [14]–[20] and

Przemyśl [21], including partly also online [21]. In ad-

dition, the study used aerial photographs from 1915 [22]

and 1944 [23] and an urban design from the early 2

half

of the 20

century [24], located in the archives of the

Rzeszów City Development Oce, with fragments also

available in elaborations [25]–[27].

The current map available via the Geoportal of the city

of Rzeszów [28] was taken as the reference. The follow-

ing layers were used: Plots, Buildings and accompanying

objects, and Relief (Fig. 4). The layer of NMT-shading

was used supportingly. Similar data can be obtained from

the National Geoportal [29], which diers in the interface.

Data from the Geoportal were used to carry out compar-

ative studies with the matter of the historical cadastral

plan [15] and an aerial photography from 1915 [22]. In

addition, a tool available in the Geoportal for generating

visua lized. Their shapes dier from contemporary ones

due to later modernizations, but the location of the refor-

mats complex, as well as the number of windows in the

buildings, suggest that Wiedemann considered his work

as only a scheme, focusing on “counting” the objects, and

not on exact reproduction of their shapes and location.

The same is true of the view of the city in 1762. The num-

ber of axes in the monastery part of the Piarist complex,

unchanged to this day, calculated incorrectly (on Wiede-

mann’s plan 10, in fact 11) presented on it, gave rise to

divergent theories about the extent of the expansion of the

school wing in 1835 [4], [7]–[10].

It is hard to believe that the errors were Wiedemann’s

intention. It can even be assumed that he himself noticed

them while working. The abandonment of the correction

could have resulted from the state of advancement of the

work, which measures 120 × 180 cm, so it was created

over a longer period of time, as well as the purpose for

which it was made. The view of the city was supposed to

“please the eye” of Duchess Joanna Lubomirska, who was

the owner of Rzeszów at that time. Probably, her spatial

imagination was inferior to that of Wiedemann, and more-

over, the Duchess, spending time in the castle chambers

and gardens, did not know the topography of the city well.

Such a view of Rzeszów satised her ambitions.

Objectives and methods

of research work

Drawing attention to the obvious, though not com-

mented by anyone, inaccuracies in the mapping of the city

structure on Wiedemann’s plan in 1762, inspired the au-

thor to conduct research on the topography of the histori-

cal part of Rzeszów. The notion topography is understood

here as the landform and arrangement of areas with dier-

ent ways of development, without interest in the details of

Fig. 4. Geoportal of the city of Rzeszów with highlighted layers used during the research (source: [28])

Il. 4. Geoportal miasta Rzeszowa z wyróżnionymi warstwami wykorzystanymi w trakcie badań (źródło: [28])

Topography of the 18

-century Rzeszów and its relics in the contemporary architectural and urban space of the city 21

terrain cross-sections was used. The research was com-

plemented by a site visit in places so untransformed, that

as the analyses results conrm, some features of the land-

form from Wiedemann’s times are still retained there.

A photographic documentation was prepared during the

site inspection.

Analysis of documents representing Rzeszów

in times after Wiedemann

Rzeszów at the time of partitions

in cartographic documents

The cartographic resource from this period consists of

two types of maps: topographic maps and cadastral plans

[30]. Due to the fact that Rzeszów found itself in Austria

after the First Partition of Poland in 1772, the city and the

surrounding area were still within the reach of the Aus-

trian cartographic services in the 18

century. Exactly

during this period, work was underway on the so-called

Teresian-Josephine survey – a large-scale topograph-

ic map, drawn up in the years 1763–1785 in the scale

of 1: 28 800 and intended for military purposes [31].

On the fragment of the map (in the literature also re-

ferred to as Mieg’s map) covering Rzeszów, dating from

1779–1783 [11], three ponds on the western side of the

city, known from Wiedemann’s plan, are clearly visible

(Fig. 5a). According to the nomenclature given by Hennig

[10], they will be referred to as Jezioro Bernardyńskie (1),

Mały Staw Podzamczy (2) and Wielki Staw Podzamczy (3).

The view of this map leads to the reection that, despite

the meticulous, as for the scale used, quantitative map-

ping of the buildings, its spatial arrangement is not pre-

sented precisely enough. Pijarska / 3 Maja Street is not

only not marked on the map in accordance with its actu-

al curvature, it is even curved in the opposite direction.

This is partly the result of the imperfection of geodetic

measurements of the time, and partly due to insucient

diligence, because certain dependencies were noticeable

with the naked eye.

Other projects of Austrian cartography were the so-

called a Franciscan survey taken in 1806–1868 (Fig. 5b)

and a Franciscan-Josephine survey from 1868–1897. The

names of all three cartographic elaborations come from

the names of the then reigning Austrian emperors [31].

The second map was made in the same scale and tech-

nique as the rst one, while the third one was made in

the scale of 1: 25 000 and the monochrome convention.

The fragment of the second study covering Rzeszów

comes from the years 1861–1864 [12].

The map resulting from the second survey (Fig. 5b) is

developed with greater precision than the 18

-century map

(Fig. 5a). The course of Pijarska / 3 Maja Street is consis-

tent with the actual state. Neither Jezioro Bernardyńskie

nor Mały Staw Podzamczy can be seen anymore, the areas

after them are covered with greenery. Spatial outlines and

buildings of the castle grange and castle stables, as well as

the outline of the Wielki Staw Podzamczy are visible as

before. The place was no longer lled with water, but re-

mained undeveloped. The third survey [13] does not dier

from the second one [12] in terms of content, which is due

to the small distance between these two mappings.

The cadastral maps were made with a scale ten times

more precise (1:2880) than the topographic map. This

translated into a more detailed presentation of land use.

The map from 1842 [14] is the oldest, but the map from

1849 [21] is the most impressive due to its multi-co-

louredness. Beyond the ownership division, it contains

markings of buildings with the distinction of the material

from which they are made, and the arrangement of green-

ery. The map of Rzeszów [21] (Fig. 6a) does not include

all the areas described so far. The castle and the areas pre-

viously belonging to the residential complex were within

the boundaries of the Staroniwa commune. The cadas-

tral map of Staroniwa from 1849 is also preserved [15]

(Fig. 6b). It is drawn up exactly in the same convention as

the map of Rzeszów. The topography of the city presented

on both maps is similar to the one visible in the Josephine

survey, but due to the greater accuracy of the cadastral

maps, they are more valuable research material.

Fig. 5. Fragments of topographic maps from the time of the partitions:

a) Teresian-Josephine survey (1779–1783) (source: [11]), b) Franciscan survey (1861–1864) (source: [12])

Il. 5. Fragmenty map topograficznych z czasów rozbiorów:

a) zdjęcie terezjańsko-józefińskie (1779–1783) (źródło: [11]), b) zdjęcie franciszkańskie (1861–1864) (źródło: [12])

a b

22 Maciej Piekarski

In the later period of the Austrian rule, cadastral maps

of Rzeszów were developed several more times. Maps

from 1852 [16], 1879 [17], 1888 [18] and 1909 [19] have

been preserved in the State Archives in Rzeszów. New-

er maps are graphically poorer. The ones from the 19

century do not include the area around the castle, because

the Staroniwa commune was incorporated into Rzeszów

only in 1902. Although in the areas west of 3 Maja Street

at the turn of the 19

and 20

centuries new streets were

marked out and construction developed, the remains of

the former farm buildings of the Lubomirski family were

still clearly visible.

One more document dated 1829 [20], similar to the

map, has been preserved in the State Archives in Rzeszów.

It shows the layout and ownership of the real estate in the

south-western part of then Rzeszów. Presumably it was

prepared for scal purposes. The arrangement of individu-

al objects is marked schematically, but this diagram is still

a valuable supplement to the information we have about

-century Rzeszów.

Rzeszów from the 1

half of the 20

century

in aerial photographs

The development of aviation, initiated in 1903, togeth-

er with the development of photography, which had al-

ready been going on for several decades, provided new

opportunities for documenting the topography of the area.

World War I, during which the possibility of acquiring in-

formation about the enemy’s positions and the movements

of his troops by means of observations from air-planes

was appreciated, was the impulse for the development of

aerial photography. Warfare also aected Rzeszów, which

was alternately occupied by armies of warring powers. At

least three aerial photographs of Rzeszów, taken in 1915,

have been preserved, which today are privately owned

and are available to the general public only in low resolu-

tion [22], [32].

Another collection of aerial photographs of Rzeszów

comes from the period of World War II. Despite signi-

cant transformations in the land development compared

to the state from the 18

century, the photograph from

1944 [23] still provides a noticeable image of the build-

ings in the area of the former stables and the castle grange

consistent with Wiedemann’s plan. The area of the former

Wielki Staw Podzamczy is similarly noticeable.

Town planning documents

from the 2

half of the 20

century

The location of the capital of the voivodeship in Rze-

szów in 1944 was an impulse for the dynamic development

of the city. The transformation plans within the historic

part of Rzeszów developed in the early post-war period

included several variants of solutions [25], [26], but all

of them assumed the routing through the city of commu-

nication arteries in the east-west and north-south, with

the task of taking over the car trac from the narrow

streets of the city centre. The main dierences between

the variants were in the way the north-south route was

Fig. 6. Cadastral maps from 1849:

a) map of Rzeszów (source: [21]),

b) map of Staroniwa (source: [15])

Il. 6. Mapy katastralne z 1849 r.:

a) mapa Rzeszowa (źródło: [21]),

b) mapa Staroniwy (źródło: [15])

Topography of the 18

-century Rzeszów and its relics in the contemporary architectural and urban space of the city 23

run, on the western or eastern side of the Bernardine mon-

astery and along then Marchlewski (pre-war Skarbowa/

Orlicz-Dreszer, now Lisa-Kuli) and Zamkowa Streets or

Mochnacki and Homanowa Streets. In each of the vari-

ants, the route entered the area of the former Jezioro Ber-

nardyńskie, which was still largely undeveloped.

Especially noteworthy are the spatial development

plans for Rzeszów carried out by Zbigniew Wzorek in

the years 1947–1953 [25]–[27]. The plans were aimed at

depriving the city of its small-town character and giving

it features adequate to obtain the rank of a provincial cap-

ital. Wzorek saw value in the 18

-century topography of

the city known from Wiedemann’s plan and strove for its

partial restitution, even regretting that reconstruction of

the water reservoirs surrounding the city, was not possi-

ble [27]. Wzorek’s plan was not implemented. Thus, the

spatial layout of the former castle stables was not recon-

structed, which, apart from providing the city with an

impressive urban interior, would allow for the preserva-

tion of the buildings of Zamkowa Street and the removal

of the north-south route from the oldest part of the city.

However, Wzorek’s plans to recreate the gardens in the

vicinity of the Lubomirski summer palace were less un-

derstandable. As the drawings show, the liquidation of the

Art Nouveau buildings on Aleja Pod Kasztanami and the

modernist buildings of Polski Czerwony Krzyż Street was

assumed. In the opinion of the contemporary residents of

Rzeszów, these parts of the city, due to these buildings

emanate genius loci to the greatest extent.

The results of Wzorek’s studies are drawings recon-

structing on the current map the urban structure present-

ed by Wiedemann. The reconstructions in the individual

drawings are not strictly identical, in some fragments the

interpretation is incorrect due to unreective reliance on

Wiedemann’s inaccurate drawing (Fig. 7a). This comment

applies especially to the excessively large area of gardens

in the summer palace complex. Also, the fanciful shape of

Wielki Staw Podzamczy (Fig. 7b) is not conrmed in the

topographic maps discussed in the point of Rzeszów at the

time of partitions in cartographic documents.

Confrontation of historical sources

with the current state

The potential of the current cartographic resource

Geoportal [28], [29] is an excellent research tool in the

eld of terrain. It enables a visual analysis of the content

of the Relief layer, which contains the elevations of points

and graphic marks of even low scarps. In addition, it en-

ables viewing of a digital terrain model, which is the eect

of 3D laser scanning (NMT-shading layer), as well as gen-

erating cross-sections along arbitrarily drawn broken lines.

Contrary to appearances, the view of the DTM brings

the least benets, because in the case of small dierenc-

es in ordinates, it is dicult to distinguish between the

terrain elevation, which is a remnant of its former shape,

and smoothness disturbances resulting from the intended

levelling around individual buildings, the location of en-

trances to sunken garages, etc. Viewing the Relief layer

is more ecient. Due to the fact that the scarp markings

were placed on it in a conscious way, they are an indication

of places where it is worth carrying out local visions. The

cross-sections, although misleading due to the unevenness

Fig. 7. Drawings for the general spatial development plan of Rzeszów by Z. Wzorek:

a) a study of the reconstruction of the historical urban layout of Rzeszów,

b) Rzeszów 1762 – a historical study

(source: [24], Biuro Rozwoju Miasta w Rzeszowie)

Il. 7. Rysunki do planu ogólnego przestrzennego zagospodarowania Rzeszowa autorstwa Z. Wzorka:

a) studium rekonstrukcji historycznego układu urbanistycznego Rzeszowa,

b) Rzeszów 1762 – studium historyczne

(źródło: [24], Biuro Rozwoju Miasta w Rzeszowie)

24 Maciej Piekarski

of the vertical and horizontal scales, may in turn conrm

the hypotheses derived from other sources. The map

available in the Geoportal, providing the ability to explore

in any conguration of layers, is also invaluable material

for confrontation with maps and historical photographs.

Analysis of aerial photographs

The purpose of the photos from 1915 [22], [32] was

not a photogrammetric mapping of the area, which is why

the shots are quite random, moreover, they cover only to

a small extent the fragments of the city that are the sub-

ject of consideration in this article. One of them shows the

view of two depressions in the area where, according to

Wiedemann’s plan, the gardens of the summer palace with

two ponds were located. This topographical detail, which is

barely noticeable on the cadastral map from 1849, is easier

to read on the photograph due the time of year in which

it was taken, because it was before the vegetation turned

green. The area in the immediate vicinity of the depressions

is undeveloped, but in the further surroundings there are

buildings existing to this day, which can be used to prepare

a geometric structure, leading to determinate the location of

the ponds in the current land arrangement. The transfer of

the structure from the archival photograph (Fig. 8a) to the

modern map (Fig. 8b) was based on the observation of to-

pological relationships and on approximate measurements

along the straight lines that are least deviated from the

perspective background, for which the deformation of the

distance is negligible. A fully precise design would require

taking into account, e.g. also the ordinates of the terrain,

and due to the low resolution of the photo and, consequent-

ly, the somewhat intuitive drawing of characteristic straight

lines on it, the eect would not guarantee correctness either.

The obtained result (Fig. 8b) proves that the axis of the

garden layout (OZO) was not an extension of the axis of

the summer palace (OPL), as suggested by Wiedemann’s

plan from 1762 (Fig. 2), although its bend is visible also on

it. The lack of parallelism of the compositional axes of the

parts of the gardens located in front of and behind the sum-

mer palace is clearly visible in the drawing, which is the

left part of the triptych (Fig. 1). Since its central part does

not show gardens at all, it can be assumed that the side parts

are designs that are yet to be implemented, while the view

from 1762 shows the eects of implementation. The bend

of the compositional axis was probably caused by terrain

conditions. Wiedemann, it seems, was an ecient designer,

but he was less successful in the eld of drawing construc-

tions. It is interesting that a few meters from the back edge

of the ponds, an escarpment with a height of approximately

0.8 m has been preserved to this day, both marked on the

map [28], [29] and visible in situ. The view in the aerial

photograph gives the impression that the pond basins were

not recessed in the ground, but formed as a result of being

surrounded by a dike. The modern trace may be related to

the earlier presence of ponds and dikes, and the slight dif-

ference in location is the result of land levelling performed

during the construction of the current buildings.

Superposition of maps

One of the ways that can be used to search for relics of

the former landform in the current topography of the city

is to overlay maps (Fig. 9). The study used the cadastral

map of Staroniwa from 1849 [15] (Fig. 6b). The date of

its creation is closest to the times of Wiedemann’s activity,

Fig. 8. Reconstruction of the location of the ponds in the garden

of the summer palace using an auxiliary planimetric structure:

a) aerial photo from 1915 (photo courtesy of J. Rudnicki),

b) contemporary map (1, 2, 3 – buildings used in the construction,

OZO – axis of the garden layout, OPL – axis of the summer palace)

(elaborated by M. Piekarski)

Il. 8. Odtworzenie położenia stawów w ogrodzie pałacu letniego

przy zastosowaniu pomocniczej konstrukcji planimetrycznej:

a) zdjęcie lotnicze z 1915 (zdjęcie dzięki uprzejmości J. Rudnickiego),

b) mapa współczesna (1, 2, 3 – budynki wykorzystane w konstrukcji,

OZO – oś założenia ogrodowego, OPL – oś pałacu letniego)

(oprac. M. Piekarski)

Topography of the 18

-century Rzeszów and its relics in the contemporary architectural and urban space of the city 25

Fig. 9. Superposition of

the cadastral map of Staroniwa

from 1849 (source: [15])

and the current map of Rzeszów

with the layers Plots and Buildings

and accompanying objects

(source: [28])

Il. 9. Superpozycja mapy

katastralnej Staroniwy z 1849 r.

(źródło: [15]) i aktualnej mapy

Rzeszowa z warstwami Działki

oraz Budynki i obiekty towarzyszące

(źródło: [28])

and at the same time its accuracy is satisfactory. The map

of Staroniwa is more accurate than the map of Rzeszów,

because the castle with its surroundings and a complex of

ponds and outbuildings were located within Staroniwa, not

Rzeszów. Although at the time of creation of the map wa-

ter reservoirs no longer existed, many composition prem-

ises known from Wiedemann’s plan were still preserved.

The historical map was superimposed on the current

map downloaded from the Geoportal (Fig. 4). The maps

were coordinated by adjusting the sections determined by

the points of two relatively distant objects: the post-Refor-

mat church and the summer palace. The accuracy obtained

is satisfactory, which proves the high craftsmanship of the

-century measurers. The experiment also conrmed

the results obtained in the analysis described in the section

Analysis of aerial photographs. A slight discrepancy results

from taking the rectangular shape of the troughs, because

such an impression is intuitively received from the pho-

tographs, while on the map they have trapezoidal shapes.

Analysis of the current master map

and terrain cross-sections

Based on the conclusions from the review of archival

maps and photographs as well as the analyses carried out,

the map available in the Geoportal was re-queried. Atten-

tion was paid to the vicinity of the edges of former water

reservoirs, assuming their location according to Figure 8.

Most traces of the historical topography of the city are

visible in the layer showing the ownership division of

the area. The lack of compliance concerns basically only

those places where expropriation for the construction of

roads or large-area buildings was carried out. As far as

the height variation is concerned, clear traces of the for-

mer topography are visible only in a few places, and the

dierences in current ordinates are probably smaller than

in the period when water reservoirs were located there.

In some places, the edges of the former ponds have been

softened as a result of lling in the bottom, in others they

are now vertical, as a result of levelling the surface of the

neighbouring plots to dierent levels. Plot borders, with

fences, retaining walls or walls of buildings preserved

along some of their fragments, walls of buildings on plots

with changed borders and scarps are the traces of the for-

mer shores (Fig. 10a – yellow). Some of the scarps are

shifted by several meters in relation to the indications in

the drawing, which is the result of local land levelling,

but the very fact of the escarpment’s presence seems to be

a consequence of historical topography.

The historical topography is conrmed by the terrain

cross-sections (Fig. 10a – black). The reason for the defor-

mation of the expected shapes are the streets built in the

century, which, due to the class of the road, required

the use of thick structural layers. This is especially visible

on the C-C section (Fig. 10b), the formation of which re-

sults from the construction of Hetmańska Street on a high

embankment on the bottom of Wielki Staw Podzamczy.

On-site inspection

The last stage of the research work was the visual veri-

cation of the results developed during the study work, car-

ried out on-site. Although the author of the study is a res-

ident of Rzeszów, the results of the research work were

partly surprising to him, because most of the established

traces of the former topography of the city are located in

places not visited on a daily basis, they are not unusual, and

moreover, their origin can be determined only as a result of

confrontation with archival materials. Figure 11 presents

photographs of selected places marked in Figure 10a.

Summary

The results of the research work allow for the formula-

tion of several conclusions of local importance which may

be of interest only to researchers and residents of Rze-

szów, but some conclusions are also of universal impor-

tance. One of the reections that comes to mind is the

statement of the insucient state of research on the urban

development of Rzeszów, which, due to its expansion, ab-

sorbed in the 20

and 21

centuries adjacent villages, pre-

viously constituting separate rural or manorial areas, with-

out the respect for their individuality. Existing studies are

based predominantly on text documents, and the analysis of

26 Maciej Piekarski

cartographic documents is inexact and not suciently re-

lated to the analysis of contemporary land use. The igno-

rance of this aspect in the previous studies is partly justi-

ed by the greater diculty in using cartographic material

at a time when it could not yet be available in digital form.

The research carried out extends the available stock of

knowledge with a new particle, based on analyses using

modern geoinformatic technologies. It is important both

for researchers and for residents because it can have a pos-

itive impact on the feeling of being rooted in a given area,

and thus strengthening the social bonds in the local com-

munity. The author bases his reection on the observation

of thematic walks around Rzeszów organized in recent

years by various cultural institutions, which enjoy con-

siderable interest of the inhabitants, often exceeding the

organizers’ expectations. Finding the past in the present,

through the assimilation of historical artefacts palpable in

the city space despite the passage of time, has also the

potential to build a comforting view of the future as a state

in which traces of the current present will also be kept.

The main goal set at the beginning of the research, i.e.

nding traces of water reservoirs surrounding 18

-century

Rzeszów, has been achieved. However, this does not mean

that the location of these reservoirs has been fully estab-

lished. The search will continue. With regard to Rzeszów,

a broader analysis of the arrangement of elements shap-

ing the topography of Staroniwa and other villages that

are currently part of Rzeszów can be adopted as the next

research goal, due to the availability of rich cartograph-

ic collections in the archival resources. Areas not previ-

ously covered with buildings or built only with wooden

buildings, not preserved to this day, will cause diculties.

The coordination of historical maps with the contempo-

rary map will require a dierent method of proceeding,

i.e. finding permanent topographic objects other than

buildings. The method of overlapping maps as a tool for

nding in the terrain the location of objects shaping its

historical topography can be a universal method, provided

that the detailed procedure is adapted to local conditions.

In general terms, research on the transformation of the

city’s topography draws attention to the terrain as an ele-

ment of the cultural landscape, which is still poorly per-

ceived in the issues of heritage protection. The changes de-

scribed in the article took place either in the 19

century,

Fig. 10. Recognized traces of shorelines of former ponds in the current structure of the city:

a) a projection from the Geoportal with the marking of shoreline fragments (yellow), terrain cross-sections (black)

and places in which the photos included in Fig. 11 have been taken (circled numbers),

b) terrain cross-sections

(elaborated by M. Piekarski)

Il. 10. Rozpoznane ślady linii brzegowych dawnych stawów we współczesnej strukturze miasta:

a) rzut z Geoportalu z oznaczeniem fragmentów linii brzegowych (kolor żółty), przekrojów terenu (kolor czarny) oraz miejsc,

w których wykonane zostały fotografie składające się na il. 11 (numery w kółkach), b) przekroje terenu

(oprac. M. Piekarski)

Topography of the 18

-century Rzeszów and its relics in the contemporary architectural and urban space of the city 27

Fig. 11. Traces of shores of 18

-century water reservoirs:

a) wall (marked as 1 in Fig. 10a), b, c) walls of buildings (marked as 2 and 3 in Fig. 10a), d) fence (marked as 4 in Fig. 10a),

e) low escarpment (marked as 5 in Fig. 10a), f) high escarpment (marked as 6 in Fig. 10a)

(photo by M. Piekarski)

Il. 11. Ślady brzegów XVIII-wiecznych zbiorników wodnych:

a) mur (na il. 10a oznaczony jako 1), b, c) ściany budynków (na il. 10a oznaczone jako 2 i 3), d) ogrodzenie (na il. 10a oznaczone jako 4),

e) skarpa niska (na il. 10a oznaczona jako 5), f) skarpa wysoka (na il. 10a oznaczona jako 6)

(fot. M. Piekarski)

when the liquidation of ponds was a remedy for the man-

agement of the material from excavations for new build-

ings, the need for new investment areas, as well as sanitary

nuisances, or in the 20

century, when the priority of the

city’s development was overriding, which is conrmed by

ignoring the plans developed by Zbigniew Wzorek. The

lack of respect for the terrain conguration as an element

shaping the city’s identity was also characteristic of later

periods, as well as it is recently. Against the background

outlined above, the issue of ownership division of land

looks better. In places not aected by land consolidation

for large-area public investments, the cadastral division of

the area remains unchanged even for centuries, sometimes

only in the form of a drawing on the map, no longer re-

ected in the physical divisions of space.

Translated by

Maciej Piekarski

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Mr. Jacek Rudnicki for providing a digital version of

the photograph of Rzeszów from 1915, which helped me to make a more

accurate geometric construction.

28 Maciej Piekarski

Abstract

Topography of the 18

-century Rzeszów and its relics

in the contemporary architectural and urban space of the city

One of the icons of Rzeszów is the 18

-century perspective view of the city, known as the Wiedemann plan. The view shows the buildings and

topography of the city, which was then surrounded by a system of ponds and backwaters. All representative buildings have been preserved to this day,

although in slightly changed forms. Ponds and backwaters do not exist.

The study described in the article was aimed at nding traces of the shores of these water reservoirs in the modern topography of the city, which

is very much transformed. Maps and aerial photographs from the times when traces of the 18

-century topography were more visible were used

for this purpose. The content of cartographic sources was used by overlaying digital versions of maps: historical and current, calibrating the image

using a pair of points belonging to two distant objects with unchanged shapes. The information contained in the photograph was veried by making

analogous geometric constructions on the photograph and on the current map. The culmination of the study was an in-situ reconnaissance. Many still

clear traces of the former topography were found in the area, which may be imperceptible to an outside observer.

The obtained results introduce a correction to the Wiedemann’s plan, which mapped the spatial structure of the city partly incorrectly. They sup-

plement the knowledge base about Rzeszów, which does not suciently cover spatial and urban issues. They draw attention to the ignored element

of the urban cultural landscape, which is the topography, often insuciently protected.

Key words: urban planning, Rzeszów, heritage protection, topography

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Topography of the 18

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Streszczenie

Topograa XVIII-wiecznego Rzeszowa i jej relikty

we współczesnej przestrzeni architektoniczno-urbanistycznej miasta

Jedną z ikon Rzeszowa jest XVIII-wieczny widok perspektywiczny miasta, znany jako tzw. plan Wiedemanna. Na widoku przedstawione są

budynki oraz topograa miasta, które było wówczas otoczone systemem stawów i rozlewisk. Wszystkie reprezentacyjne budynki, chociaż w nieco

zmienionych formach, są zachowane do dzisiaj. Stawy i rozlewiska nie istnieją.

Celem autora w badaniu opisanym w artykule było odnalezienie śladów po brzegach tych zbiorników wodnych we współczesnej topograi mia-

sta, która jest bardzo zmieniona. Posłużono się do tego mapami i fotograami lotniczymi z czasów, kiedy ślady XVIII-wiecznego ukształtowania

terenu były bardziej widoczne. Treść źródeł kartogracznych wykorzystano poprzez nałożenie na siebie cyfrowych wersji map: historycznej oraz

aktualnej, kalibrując obraz za pomocą pary punktów przynależnych do dwóch oddalonych od siebie obiektów o niezmienionych bryłach. Informację

zawartą w fotograi zwerykowano poprzez wykonanie analogicznych konstrukcji geometrycznych na fotograi oraz aktualnej mapie. Zwieńcze-

niem badania był rekonesans in situ. W jego trakcie znaleziono w terenie wiele wciąż wyraźnych śladów dawnej topograi, które dla postronnego

obserwatora mogą być niezauważalne.

Uzyskane rezultaty wprowadzają korektę do planu Wiedemanna, odwzorowującego strukturę przestrzenną miasta częściowo błędnie. Uzupełnia-

ją stan wiedzy o Rzeszowie, która w niedostatecznym stopniu obejmuje zagadnienia przestrzenno-urbanistyczne. Zwracają uwagę na ignorowany

element miejskiego krajobrazu kulturowego, jakim jest ukształtowanie terenu, często niedostatecznie chronione.

Słowa kluczowe: urbanistyka, Rzeszów, ochrona dziedzictwa, topograa