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Funkcja zamku - założenia programowe a ich realizacja

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Lileyko J.

Ochrona Zabytków

1987

issue 1-2

13-26

The destruction of the Royal Castle, which took place in two stages, i.e. in the autumn of 1939 and after the fa ll of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, was an intentional action of the Nazists and part of Hitle r’s plan to annihilate the Polish cultural and artistic heritage. This action, unprecedented in history, met with the resistance on part of the Polish society and authorities. The decision of the Legislative Seym of 1949 to reconstruct the Castle was dictated not only by the need to restore a historic structure but also ” a symbol of national independence” , the personification of which — in the opinion or the Poles — was the Castle. Irrespective of political and ideological conditions, the reconstruction, undertaken in 1971—1980 by public subscription, gave rise to a number of problems. The most important of them were: 1. a modern function of the reconstructed Castle, 2. the adoption of adequate terminology to define this reconstruction, and 3. a scope of permissible architectonic and conservation interference. In the Middle Ages the Castle was the seat of sovereign Mazovian princes. In 1569, a fter the Lubelska Union Treaty, the Castle became the place of the debates of the Seym of the united Polish Kingdom and the Grand Dutchy of Lithuania (i.e. the People’s Republic of the Two Nations) and since the 17th century — also a permanent royal residence. The Castle functioned as a parlamentary and residentional seat until the third partition of Poland in 1795. At the time of the Dutchy of Warsaw (1807-1815) and the Kingdom of Poland (1815—1831) the Castle continued to be a monarch’s residence and the seat of the Polish Seym. After Poland had regained independence in 1918, the Castle became a residence of the president of the Polish Republic and at the same time it played the function of the museum open for the public. After the 2nd World War views on the contemporary fu n ction of the Castle varied. One of the proposals was to house in there the Museum of Polish Culture with a very broad programme or to make it the residence of the head of the state with a museum programme reduced to a minimum. Those two concepts were the subject of discussions, at times very stormy, from 1949 to the end of the seventies. Finally, the predominating view was th a t the Castle should, in the first place, play museum functions as "th e Monument of History and National Culture” . The next terminological problem concerned conservation theory. The Castle was tota lly destroyed: its walls were blown u d . Still, a number of elements of the architectonic decor, paintings, sculDtures, furniture et.c. and even wallnaintinas removed together with plaster, were rescued from destruction. Numerous details of stone external decorations were excavated from the rubble. The number of original elements of the artistic decor was so big th a t it allowed fo r a historically fa ith fu l reconstruction of a number of rooms and outside elevations. In order to put those o rigina l ele ments in th e ir proper places it was necessary to rebuild the walls. However, this kind of work had been known neither in practice nor in conservational theory. Jan Zachwatowicz introduced a new term "re s titu tio n ” . Still, the a n a lysis o f the Latin word ’’ restituo” , ’’ restitutio” does not point a t it being adequate to the work carried out in the Castle. Though this word comprises the notion of other conservation works such as restoration, anastylization or even reconstruction, still a t the same time it is the term of in te rn ational law used to define "re p a ratio n of damage” done by one country to the other. This ambiguity introduces an element of redundant tautology, and the legal term cannot be employed in the case of the Castle. Thus, it seems th a t the most proper term fo r actions aimed a t restoring the Castle in its historic form is the word "reconstruction" conceived as a conservation notion, meaning the reconstruction of walls, i.e. "o f a static skeleton" in o rder to assembly o rigina l parts. The architectonic and conservation programme envisaged fo r the restoration of a ll historically and artistically valuable strata and the removal of styleless deformations, mainly from the 19tn century. The scope of admissible interference of architects and conservators has not however been agreed, which, in fact, was a proper thing to do, just as each part of the Castle, elevation or room required individual solutions. On the other hand, it gave an excessive freedom to designers. In the result of this, the external mass, elevations and a set of clasicist rooms, have been reconstructed in accordance with their historic appearance. There is only some doubt about the shape of the Grodzka Tower and corner turrets in the facade. The Mirowska Room, i.e. ’’Guardroom", has been distorted by walling up one window in order to restore an early baroque character of the south elevation, which was not the right decision. The biggest loss, however, is a historically erronous reconstruction of a p a rliamentary room. Only the Senator's Chamber from the 1st h a lf of the 18th century received architectonic forms complying with is o rig in a l appearance. On the other hand, fo rmerly vaulted chamber of Deputies, dating back to the 16-th- -18th centuries, was divided into two rooms, just as it lo o ked until 1939 and a new Chamber of Deputies from 1794 was reconstructed unoroperly. Similarly, a set of vestibules and chancellery ioining a new Chamber of Deputies with the Chamber of Senators got distorted fo r no justified reasons whatsoever. Those mistakes, possible to avoid, are inconsistent with the assumptions of the programme of reconstruction and concept of the Castle as the Monument of History and National Culture.

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1 Ochrona Zabytków

1 Lileyko J.

1 1987

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Funkcja zamku - założenia programowe a ich realizacja