Staszic Palace
Built in 1620 to bury a captured Russian tsar, this neoclassical hall on Nowy Świat now seats Poland's Academy of Sciences.
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Four centuries of colliding powers left their marks on one building: an Orthodox chapel for a Muscovite prisoner, a Dominican priory, an Enlightenment science society suppressed by Russian occupiers, and a Russification-era renovation — all on the same address. Antonio Corazzi's spare neoclassical shell from the 1820s is what survived.
What to look for
- Bertel Thorvaldsen's monument to Nicolaus Copernicus in front of the palace, unveiled on 11 May 1830
- Corazzi's neoclassical facade, commissioned by Stanisław Staszic after his 1818 purchase
- The building's plaque as seat of the Polish Academy of Sciences — the same address where Staszic donated a home to the Society of Friends of Science, founded in 1800
Exterior and Copernicus statue are visible from the street at ulica Nowy Świat 72, a main pedestrian boulevard — no entry required.
Staszic Palace is one of 36 sights worth the detour in Warsaw, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Warsaw pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Warsaw
- PGE Narodowy (Kazimierz Górski National Stadium)Poland's biggest football bowl hangs a retractable PVC roof from a central spire — when the mechanism works, it unfolds like a sail over 58,580 seats.
- Palace of Culture and ScienceStalin's skyscraper — Poles nicknamed it "elephant in lacy underwear" and never tore it down.
- Royal Castle in WarsawThe Nazis dynamited this building in 1944. Every room you walk through was rebuilt, stone by stone, between 1971 and 1984.
- Warsaw Old TownBombed flat in WWII and rebuilt from scratch — the world's first fully resurrected historic city core, now a UNESCO World Heritage site.
- National Museum in WarsawThe gallery that brought Nubian Christian art from a Sudanese cathedral to Warsaw.
- Wilanów PalaceBuilt for a warrior king while Poland still existed — and open as a museum since 1805.