Tatra Museum in Zakopane

The main building of the Dr Tytus Chałubiński Tatra Museum


Zakopane, 10, Krupówki Street, tel. (+48)(18-20-152-05,
cassette player (in English, German, French and Polish).
Oficjalna strona Muzeum Tatrzańskiego: www.muzeumtatrzanskie.pl

The history of the erection of the main building of the Tatra Museum is connected with that of Zakopane style. The Tatra Museum Society began to plan the erection of a new stone-and-brick building as early as 1907. The first design for a museum building in Zakopane style was prepared in 1908. The funds raised by the Society proved insufficient and the Building Committee was set up in 1910. Acting at count Władysław Zamoyski's inspriration, the architect Franciszek M±czyński prepared another design, this time Modernist, accepted by the General Assembly in summer 1911. The design was sent for assessment to Stanisław Witkiewicz, then under treatment in Lovran. Witkiewicz was decisively against it and his argument was found convicing by the board, members of which rejected M±czyński's design. Dr Bronisława Dłuska, the then President of the Building Committee, succeeded in reconciling the two artists and Franciszek M±czyński agreed to prepare a technical design on the basis of Stanisław Witkiewicz's concept. The erection of the new building started in summer 1913. Construction works proceeded at a rapid pace but were interrupted by the outbreak of World War I and resumed when the war was over. The museum holdings were transferred to the new building in 1920, and the opening ceremony took place two years later. Natural science and ethnographic exhibitions were made accessible to the visitors. Though subject to some changes over the years, the display in the main building has remained basically the same in its concept. As originally intended, the underlying goal is to introduce the visitor to the general problems of the nature, history and folk culture of the region.
On display in the ground floor vestibule is a plaster cast of a monument to Tytus Chałubiński. The patron of the Museum is represented with the mountaineer Sabała, a legendary figure of the Zakopane of the past. The history exhibition, richly documented with photographs and archival materials, introduces one into the history of the region of Podhale since the beginning of settlement. The evolution of Zakopane from a small village to the town it became between the two World Wars is presented in sets of subjects: cultural life, tourism, health service, education and sports. The survey of Zakopane's history closes with a section devoted to the years of the Nazi occupation in the region of Podhale.

The visitor to the ethnographic exhibition first sees a life-sized model of a Podhale cottage put up when the building was originally opened to the public. The model shows the furnishings of the cottage interiors and the living conditions of the average mountaineer family about the mid 19th century. The cottage consists of two chambers: one, called 'black' , was the centre of family life all the year round, the other, called 'white', usually performed a representative function, with a vestibule between them. This, one of the most frequently met cottage interiors, was characteristic of households of moderate means.
Model of a Podhale cottage interiors.

The rest of the ethnographic exhibition illustrates the most important areas of folk culture in the rocky part of Podhale, setting articles originating in the second half and the turn of the 19th century against contemporary ones if these are still manufactured. This part of the show highlights such sections of folk culture as agriculture, berrying and mushrooming, hunting, shepherding, the crafts (production of leather and smithery articles) and folk art (sculpture, painting on glass, pottery and ceramic sculpture), Podhale regional costume, musical instruments and the local custom of carrolling groups.
Ethnographic exhibition.
The first floor of the main building houses exhibitions devoted to animate and inanimate nature. Since the beginning of its operation the Tatra Museum has expanded its geological, botanical and zoological collections, mainly from the Tatra Mts and the Podhale region. Most of them document outstanding natural scientists' research. Elements of the collections are on show at the natural science exhibition.
Exhibitions devoted to animate and inanimate nature.
Specimens of Tatra rocks and fossils displayed in stratigraphic order, plus maps, boards and photographs illustrate the origin of the Tatra Mts and their structure. Also on display are memorabilia of the mining and metallurgy developing locally in the 18th and 19th century.
As in other huge mountains, the Tatra flora occurs zonally. In the animate nature room specimens of the flora and fauna characteristic of various zones are presented. The display is complemented by descrptions of the zones and the more interesting species.

Zbigniew Ładygin ysladyg@cyf-kr.edu.pl
Last update 2 June 2002