EN
On the night from the 13th to 14th of July 1978 a wooden church that was a well-known and sacredly cherished monument burnt down at Wola Justowska in Kraków. Merely small fragments of it were salvaged from the fire. The loss is painful as it affects the monument o f high aesthetic and historical value. The church, situated in the foregrounds of Kraków, the first-class recreation site, was the central element of a small complex of regional wooden architecture that functioned as an ethnographic park as well as an element of the extensive spatial structure o f landscape-cum-culture. Upon a joint initiative of conservation authorities and the community the church was transferred in 1948—1949 from the village o f Komorowice. It was also an active parish place of worship. The architecture o f this 16th-century building, and especially the architecture o f the tower added before 1644 and travested in a gothic style was genuine and picturesque. A great signifance of the building in the light of various aspects brings to the fore a question of its rebuilding in the previous from. There are many reasons that speak against a transfer o f some other monument and against giving up the structure the shape of which has so strongly blended with the surrounding area. There exist real possibilities o f reconstructing the building : some o f its parts have survived and besides, we still have a detailed measuring and iconographie documentation. However, a question must be asked to what extent this initiative resembles conservation works in the light o f the theory and practice. In the strict sense o f the word conservation is admittedly an activity concerning the existing substance, but as it is well-known, conservation operations o f today, and especially those involving elements of great complexes (including also the earlier mentioned spatial structure o f landscape-cum-culture) are not only limited to the former matter itself but they also include other operations performed by means o f conservation methods that lead to accomplishing targets set by this discipline. In this particular instance we are concerned with the material existence of a specific work o f art, the value o f which is instilled in something more than in a merely wearable, by its very nature, building substance. The reconstruction o f a destroyed architectural monument has a sense only if there exist relics and information making it possible to reconstruct it faithfully, and the reasons for this action are not based on emotion only but also on premises assessed on the basis of scientific and social criterions.