EN
The article postulates the reconstruction of the destroyed tower of the former Benedictine monastery of the Holy Cross on £ysiec in the OEwiêtokrzyskie Mts. In the past, the tower, together with its picturesque helmet, constituted a landmark that shaped the surrounding cultural landscape. The tower was built of cut stone during the reconstruction of the monastery and the church after the fire of 1781, and survived in a satisfactory state to the beginning of the twentieth century. On 31 October 1914 withdrawing Austrian troops plundered assorted elements of the historical monastic complex and blew up the church tower, whose collapse caused serious damage to the church. Rapid reconstruction was hampered by insufficient financial means and the dramatic situation of the partially abandoned and ruined abbey. The conception of rebuilding the tower was revived during the 1960s. The project prepared at the time assumed a faithful reconstruction according to appearance prior to destruction. Plans were made for using some of the preserved original cut stones in the elevation. From the viewpoint of conservation, the above mentioned project can be described as the construction of a copy of the tower (on a 1:1 scale) and the anastylosis of some of its architectural details. The range of the planned rebuilding of the tower’s outer shape permitted the application of a contemporary construction of the edifice and raising it with the help of modern construction methods. The project remains topical, and constitutes the foundation for all further plans of recreating the Holy Cross tower. Today, the area around the church no longer contains any elements testifying to the existence of a tower, whose role was effectively assumed by a television tower dominating over the nearby landscape. The construction of this particular tower was a symptom of ignoring the preserved cultural landscape and the supremacy of practical and economic aspects, which became more important than the further preservation of the unchanged surrounding of the monastic complex and the natural environment. The author proposes research and conservation postulates concerning the architecture of the complex, and draws attention to certain issues which should be explained and analysed. They include important research in the archives of those Benedictine abbeys with which the Holy Cross maintained contacts as well as in the Central Benedictine Archive.