Tatra Museum in Zakopane
Oficjalna strona Muzeum Tatrzańskiego: www.muzeumtatrzanskie.pl
The Tatra Museum's conservation activities began between the World Wars when,
on the initiative of the first director Juliusz Zborowski, the Museum became
engaged in conservation projects connected with the protection of the old
cemetery in Zakopane and the renovation of the Moniak Manor in Zubrzyca Górna,
both in close collaboration with the conservator in charge of the province of
Cracow.
Conservation activities were continued after the war thanks to the Museum
director's collaboration with Dr Hanna Pieńkowska, the Provincial Conservator
of Monuments in Cracow as of 1951. In the early 1950s several buildings in
Kościeliska Street in Zakopane, in addition to the Sabała cottage in
Krzeptówki, the 'Pod jedlami' (Under the Firs) House in Koziniec and the Moniak
Manor in Zubrzyca Górna, were renovated under the supervision of the Tatra
Museum.
In the 1970s Dr Hanna Pieńkowska worked out an innovative conservation
programme for the protection of the cultural environment in villages and
country towns. It first featured the concept of a 'spatial museum', understood
as both a form of the protection of monuments in situ, in collaboration
with regional museums, and the effect of a peculiar, scattered display of
time-honoured architecture in natural settings. An important role was reserved
for filial branches of museums, organized in a given locality's architectural
highlights.
After the 1975 administrative reform in Poland Dr Hanna Pieńkowska's programme
lost its nationwide applicability. Part of the programme applying to the region
at the foot of the Tatra Mts has been put into practice since 1976 by the Tatra
Museum. Renovated over the period of eighteen years were sixty-five shepherd
cabins in Tatra clearings and twenty-eight in the Podokólne clearing near
Jurgowo, the Museum of the Chochołów Uprising in the adapted Bafia croft in
Chochołów, the Łukaszczyk cottage and the Sabała cottage, both in Zakopane, the
W. and J. Kulczycki Art Gallery in the adapted Koziański House, the Korkosz
croft in Czarna Góra and the Sołtys croft at Jurgowa (the latter two being
elements of the Museum of the Folk Culture of the Region of Spisz), Bronisław
Czech's family home turned Chamber in Memory of the great sportsman, the
Władysław Hasior Gallery in the adapted open-air rest terrace of the
Warszawianka Hotel, the Gentry Culture Museum in the adapted manor and grange
at Łopuszna and the Stanisław Witkiewicz Museum of Zakopane Style in the
adapted Koliba House.
Zbigniew Ładygin ysladyg@cyf-kr.edu.pl