Schroeder Villa – Lubusz Museum in Gorzów Wielkopolski

The Lubusz Museum in Gorzów opened on 8 September 1945 as the first museum in the lands that became part of Poland after the Second World War. Since 1947 it has been based in the Schroeder Villa, an early 20th-century industrialist’s residence with a garden on the slope of a glacial moraine – one of the largest ensembles of its kind in this part of the country. It makes for an unhurried afternoon: rooms of historic crafts, galleries and a park with a fountain and a pergola.

History: an industrialist’s villa and the region’s oldest museum

The villa was built in 1903–1904 for Gustav Schroeder, a commercial councillor and factory owner in what was then Landsberg an der Warthe. It was designed in 1902 by the Charlottenburg practice Reimarus & Hetzel. The two-storey house with a mansard roof and a two-storey outbuilding with garage and stable were built in an eclectic style also known as Berlin neo-Baroque. The architects made use of the terrain: the park, about 4 hectares, descends the southern slope of the moraine from the street towards a hill called the Redoubt, once crowned by a viewing pavilion.

The museum, founded on the initiative of district governor Florian Kroenke, was also meant to save historic objects from destruction and looting. The pre-war Landsberg museum, open since 1884, had been lost along with its collections. On 18 November 1947 the museum moved into the villa, where it remains today. In 2000 it was named after Jan Dekert.

What to see

• Permanent exhibitions in the villa: pewter, a treasury, a print room, historic decorative arts, Biedermeier interiors, a portrait gallery and a heraldic hall.
• Henryk Rodakowski’s “Pałahicze Album” – a series of eleven watercolours of peasants and Jews from the village of Pałahicze.
• The museum garden with a fountain, a pergola, sculptures and paths leading up the hill.
• The 1723 granary on the Warta by the Old Town Bridge – a branch of the museum with an exhibition on the history of Gorzów, a gallery of paintings by Jan Korcz and the exhibition “Around the Arsenal 1955”. It is the city’s oldest surviving building after the cathedral and town walls, with timber-framed upper floors.

Tripto tip

The villa is open Wednesday to Sunday 10:00–18:00; the garden on Tuesdays 10:00–16:00 and Wednesday to Sunday 10:00–18:00, with free entry. A standard ticket costs PLN 18, reduced PLN 12; museum entry is free on Wednesdays. Last admission is one hour before closing. The granary on ul. Fabryczna is open Wednesday to Sunday (March–October 10:00–18:00, November–February 09:00–17:00). Allow about 1.5 hours for the villa and garden, half a day if you add the granary. The granary stands by the Old Town Bridge, so it fits easily into a walk around the old town. The museum also runs branches outside the city: the Mill Farmstead in Bogdaniec and the Santok Stronghold Museum.