Exotarium with numerous natural monuments and sculptures of exotic animals

Historical Monuments

Description

The Tadeusz Firlej square, or otherwise the exotarium, was founded on the initiative of a local regionalist, photographer, naturalist, and poet Tadeusz Firlej (1926-2006) in the early 1990s, with the great support of the then mayor Czesław Fiedorowicz. Within the boundaries of this small botanical garden there are three elements of landscape architecture: figures of egoic animals, landscaping in the form of benches and numerous specimens of many trees and shrubs, unusual for Gubin, among others Californian fir, white snow thistle, jasmine, red oak, marsh cypress, forsythia, maples, yews, silver spruce, catalpa, magnolia.

At the entrance to the square, a stone with an inscription was placed to commemorate the 200^th anniversary of the Constitution of May 3.

The area is now a legally protected area and has purely recreational functions.

Historical background

The Gubin Exotarium is the result of an idea by Tadeusz Firlej (1926-2006), a natur enthusiast, poet and regionalist known in Gubin and abroad. Firlej was the author of many historically important photographs for post-war Gubin, immortalized on the pages of his son Florian's book "Gubin of the past 1945-1976 in a photograph by Tadeusz Firlej". As a poet he published me. with Karl Grenzer, a bilingual book of poems »Word beyond borders«, in which 120 poems by both poets are enriched with beautiful 43 graphics by the famous artist-graphic artist from Gubin, Jerzy Fedro.

The square itself was built in the years 1900-1991. In 1991, three linden trees were symbolically planted in the exotarium and a stone with an inscription was placed to commemorate the 200-year anniversary of the Constitution of May 3.

»On the anniversary of the 200th anniversary of the Constitution of May 3, three linden trees were planted here by representatives of the German cities of Guben and Laatzen and the Polish city of Gubin. We want the German and Polish nations to live together in peace and freedom. May 3, 1991«.

The care of the exotarium was entrusted to the students of the local high school. After Firlej's death, however, their obligations were slowly abandoned, neglecting the exotarium to a large extent.

In a nearby square, on the building at 14 Piastowska Str., in which Firlej lived for many years, a commemorative plaque was officially unveiled in 2008. The ceremony was initiated by the Gubin Cultural Society.

In 2011, the Polish landscape architecture studio OKAZ, commissioned by the city, prepared a project to revitalize the former exotarium, supplement it with elements of small architecture and thus increase the recreational quality of this small area.