Wessel Palace (Saxon Post Office), Warsaw

For nearly a hundred years this was the point from which distances from Warsaw were measured, and on 2 November 1830 Fryderyk Chopin handed in his luggage at the post office here, not knowing he was leaving Poland for good. Wessel Palace (Pałac Wesslów), also known as the Saxon Post Office, stands at Krakowskie Przedmieście 25, on the corner of Trębacka and Kozia streets, opposite the Adam Mickiewicz Monument. Today it houses public offices, but its façades tell an interesting story of the Royal Route.

History: from residence to post office

The late Baroque palace was probably built in 1746–1752 for the Załuski family, possibly to a design by Jakub Fontana. In 1761 it was bought by the Crown Treasurer Teodor Wessel, who gave it its name, and three years later he sold it to Bishop Antoni Ostrowski. In 1780 the building was acquired for the postal service, and the main post station operated here until 1874. It handled mail links with Saxony, hence the name Saxon Post Office. Behind the building stood coach houses and stables for the post horses, and stagecoaches set off from here.

Rebuilding and war

In 1882, when Trębacka Street was widened, the corner townhouse adjoining the palace was demolished. In 1883–1884 Aleksander Woyde and Władysław Marconi thoroughly remodelled the building: they cut off the corner, added a new façade on the Trębacka side and built a third floor. From 1887 the newsrooms of the newspaper "Kurier Codzienny" and the magazine "Tygodnik Ilustrowany" were among the tenants. In 1944 the palace burned, but its walls and some of its fittings survived, and it was rebuilt in 1947 to a design by Jan Bieńkowski.

Did you know?

• The post office building was the point from which distances from Warsaw were measured.
• Chopin dropped off his luggage here on 2 November 1830, but he boarded the stagecoach towards Kalisz that evening at the Wola tollgate, where his friends saw him off.
• The cut-off corner on the Trębacka side is a reminder of the 19th-century street widening.

Tripto tip

You can only see the palace from outside: it now houses offices including the public prosecutor's, so it is not open to visitors. Allow 5–10 minutes on a walk along the Royal Route. Stand by the Mickiewicz Monument to take in the whole façade, then look down Kozia Street, a narrow lane running from here towards the Primate's Palace on Senatorska Street. Within a few hundred metres are the Carmelite Church, the Presidential Palace and the Potocki Palace.