Zamek Płakowice

Lwówek Śląski, Poland, Poland

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Zamek Płakowice, located in Płakowice near Lwówek Śląski in southwestern Poland's Lower Silesian Voivodeship, originated as a defensive manor in 1480 before Ramphold Talkenberg commissioned Italian architect Franciszek Parr in 1550 for a grand Renaissance fortress completed by 1563.

This three-winged structure with a small arcaded courtyard on Ionic columns, corner stairs, and a curtain wall was the largest defensive building in 16th-century Silesia, later modernized around 1600 by the Schaffgotsch and Hochberg families.

Damaged by Napoleonic troops, converted to a psychiatric hospital in 1824 with major 19th-century alterations removing Renaissance details, it housed Korean war orphans postwar and since 1992 serves as a Baptist church retreat amid its preserved gate portal and cloisters.