A 0.8 ha city park opened in 2023 on a former car park by ulica Karmelicka, with sensory gardens.
Wisława Szymborska Park is a city park of 0.8 hectares in the Old Town district, in Piasek, on ulica Karmelicka. It was opened on 2 July 2023, on the centenary of the poet's birth. It stands among dense development of 19th-century tenement houses, alongside the building of the Voivodeship Public Library.
From the 19th century the site was the parade ground of the Emperor Franz Joseph I barracks on ulica Rajska, and the barracks building was erected in 1858 to 1862 to a design by Feliks Księżarski. Since 1992 it has housed the library. After demilitarisation the square served for many years as a car park.
The idea of the park was submitted to Kraków's participatory budget in 2019 and won the support of more than 9,000 votes. In summer 2020 an initiative appeared to name it after Szymborska, the poet and 1996 Nobel Prize laureate. The project was prepared by the Gajda Architektura Krajobrazu studio. During construction an old grenade was found, which sappers neutralised, along with relics of former buildings, so the trees were planted in a way that does not conflict with the underground walls.
The layout consists of several garden spaces. The main avenue runs along the southern boundary from Karmelicka to ulica Dolnych Młynów, and beside it flows an artificial stream that cascades down into water basins. The basins refer to the former fish ponds in Piasek and collect rainwater from the surrounding roofs.
The eastern part is a fruit orchard, recalling the orchards of the Carmelites, the middle is occupied by a semicircular meadow, and the western by a small grove. A row of lime trees grows along the main avenue. The park has 125 trees, more than 1,500 shrubs, about 18,500 perennials and more than 70,000 bulbs planted. Four sensory gardens, Red, Green, Yellow and Blue, differ in the colours and scents of their plants.
The park's composition includes references to Szymborska: umbrellas, because the poet was said to lose them often, and a wall collection of objects on a historic wall, referring to her habit of collecting artefacts. Three double-sided panels with rotating tiles form the shape of the letter “Y” and let visitors compose sentences from words and pictures, like the poet's collages. Boulders and steel letters carry fragments of the poem “Possibilities”. On the wall of the tenement house at Karmelicka 28 a mural with the poem “Nothing Twice” was created.
The park has five entrances. Along the stream, elements have been introduced to help partially sighted people sense the edge of the water, and the avenues have different surfaces that help visually impaired people find their way.
About seven hundred metres away lies the Main Market Square with the Cloth Hall (Sukiennice). Closer, about three hundred metres away, stands the Bagatela Theatre, and about eight hundred metres from the park runs Planty Park. Next door is also the Basilica of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary with the Carmelite monastery.
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