Ochrona i konserwacja zabytków techniki w Polsce

• Authors: Kalinowski Wojciech

Title variants

EN

THE PROTECTION AND CONSERVATION OF MONUMENTS OF ENGINEERING IN POLAND

• Languages of publication: PL EN

Abstracts

EN

The beginnings of the activities aimed at the protection of monuments of engineering go back to the 18th century (collections) to get developed — through the 19th cent, characterized by an interest in modern technology — in programmed operations at the onset of this century. We can include here surveying work carried out by Architectural Department of Warsaw and Gdańsk Technical Universities on rural industrial plants (mills, windmills, sawmills et.c.) that have preserved old technical equipment and production techniques, archaeologic studies of a neolithic flint mine at Opatowskie Krzemionki, making a medieval salt mine at Wieliczka open to the public and opening in the thirties the first Polish museum of engineering in metallurgical works at Sielpia Wielka. After the 2nd World War the protection of monuments of engineering has become the responsibility of the ministry of culture and the Supreme Technical Organization (NOT). Legal foundations of this activity found their reflection in the 1962 law on the protection of cultural property and on museums (art. 4, para 6). These theoretical broader foundations of the protection proved to be very difficult for their practical implementation, in particular for the following reasons: lack of qualified conservation services trained to perform specific tasks linked with the protection of monuments of engineering, difficulties to find new functions for historic objects of engineering, already unused, and especially the keeping of movable units and problems connected with their maintenance. Another problem which makes difficult the protection of monuments of engineering is a low level of technical culture of the society and collisions between productional tasks of industrial plants aiming at modernization and updating of production and the need to preserve the most characteristic objects and equipment. The postulate that has not been realized as yet is, i.a., the creation in economic branches of one-man conservation units which would closely cooperate with the state conservation service. Despite those difficulties Poland has got not only theoretical achievements in the field of the protection of monuments of engineering. Leading industrial plants have opened museums of engineering, to mention only the Museum of Staropolskie Zagłębie (Old Poland Basin), at Sielpia Wielka, Museum of Ancient Metallurgy at Nowa Słupia (sections of the NOT Technical Museum), the Textile Museum at Łodź, Central Marine Museum in Gdańsk, the Museum of Cracow Salt Mines at Wieliczka (included by UNESCO into the world cultural heritage), museums in historic mines at Tarnowskie Gory and Rudki, museums of paper industry in an old paper mill at Duszniki and important objects, still in use, preserved in situ, graduation (brine) tower at Ciechocinek, rolling-mill at Maleniec, the Augustow Canal with all buildings and water equipment and many other plants.

• Publisher: Narodowy Instytut Dziedzictwa
• Journal: Ochrona Zabytków
• Year: 1985
• Issue: 3-4
• Pages: 163-170

Dates

published

1985

Contributors

author

Kalinowski Wojciech

• prof. dr, Ośrodek Dokumentacji Zabytków w Warszawie

Identifiers

ISSN

0029-8247