Jordan Park (''Park Jordana'', literally Jordan's Park) was established in 1889 as the first public playground in

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula, Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland un ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

, and the first of its kind in Europe. It was equipped with exercise fixtures modeled after those of similar playgrounds in the United States. The park is located in Kraków’s ''Błonia'' (municipal grasslands that had previously served as cattle

pasture Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") is land used for grazing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, cattle, sheep, or sw ...

).Jacek Slezak
Jordan's Garden in Krakow, Poland

History

The original Jordan Park included a swimming pool, 12 playing and

soccer field A football pitch (also known as soccer field) is the playing surface for the game of association football. Its dimensions and markings are defined by Law 1 of the Laws of the Game, "The Field of Play". The pitch is typically made of natural t ...

s, as well as numerous running and exercise tracks. Facilities were added for indoor activities in 1906, in case of bad weather. The park was also equipped with locker rooms and showers. On top of that, a free meal service was established for the children. Jordan Park was set up by physician and physical education pioneer Dr.

Henryk Jordan Henryk Jordan (23 July 1842 in Przemyśl – 16 May 1907 in Kraków) was a Polish philanthropist, physician and pioneer of physical education. A professor of obstetrics from 1895 at Kraków's Jagiellonian University, Jordan became best known for o ...

, brought to completion with the help from the director of Kraków City Parks, Bolesław Malecki. The concept of Jordan’s Gardens became very popular throughout interwar Poland. Similar gardens were opened in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officiall ...

Płock Płock (pronounced ) is a city in central Poland, on the Vistula river, in the Masovian Voivodeship. According to the data provided by GUS on 31 December 2021, there were 116,962 inhabitants in the city. Its full ceremonial name, according to th ...

Kalisz (The oldest city of Poland) , image_skyline = , image_caption = ''Top:'' Town Hall, Former "Calisia" Piano Factory''Middle:'' Courthouse, "Gołębnik" tenement''Bottom:'' Aerial view of the Kalisz Old Town , image_flag = POL Kalisz flag.svg ...

and

Lublin Lublin is the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the center of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin is the largest Polish city east of ...

. In 1928 the Society of Jordan’s Gardens was established to oversee the building of all recreational facilities in the country.

Concept

The most innovative aspect of Jordan's idea of public parks was perhaps the change in public's perception: stressing the importance of physical education and making people realize that physical exercise is equally important to the intellectual development of children while shaping their personality. Since the beginning, Jordan Park ran programs based solely on games and exercises. Classes were originally run by students of Kraków's universities, whose work was supervised personally by

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...

. There were 14 fields of different shapes and sizes in the park and many gymnastics devices. The main focus was on games so that the participants wouldn't feel pressured but rather spent time exercising in a pleasant way. They practiced the javelin throw,

archery Archery is the sport, practice, or skill of using a bow to shoot arrows.Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Archery'' p. 17 The word comes from the Latin ''arcus'', meaning bow. Historically, archery has been used for hunting and combat. In ...

, and organized walking on stilts, but also played team sports based on field competition.

Soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...

and

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball cov ...

were introduced, as well as common games such as "Chinese wall", "cat and mouse" and many others. Activities were to be learned and practiced outside the park as well, even if there weren't any sport facilities nearby. In the middle of the park was a circular labyrinth of trimmed

hornbeam Hornbeams are hardwood trees in the flowering plant genus ''Carpinus'' in the birch family Betulaceae. The 30–40 species occur across much of the temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Origin of names The common English name ''hornbeam ...

s (bot. ''Carpinus betulus'') with a flower bed in its center. From 1907, there were 45 busts of famous Poles displayed in the park, ordered by Jordan and made by sculptors Alfred Daun and Michal Korpal. On 21 June 1914 a monument of the founder Henryk Jordan, designed by Jan Szczepkowski, was unveiled in the center of the labyrinth on the park's 25th anniversary. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

the park was devastated but the 22 busts and the monument of Jordan were saved by F. Łuczywo. After the war, the area of the park was enlarged to , and the Society of Jordan’s Gardens reestablished. New playing fields and sports venues were added, including a

toboggan A toboggan is a simple sled traditionally used by children. It is also a traditional form of transport used by the Innu and Cree of northern Canada. In modern times, it is used on snow to carry one or more people (often children) down a hill ...

slide,

amphitheatre An amphitheatre (British English) or amphitheater (American English; both ) is an open-air venue used for entertainment, performances, and sports. The term derives from the ancient Greek ('), from ('), meaning "on both sides" or "around" and ...

, and bicycle tracks. The center point of the park is a man-made pond, a place for group activities such as boat rowing and water bicycles.

References

External links

Henryk Jordan’s Park at www.grodzka.net.pl

* {{coord, 50.062869, N, 19.916239, E, source:plwiki_region:PL, format=dms, display=title 1889 establishments in Austria-Hungary Parks in Kraków