Scholarly record

BETWEEN TRADITION AND MODERNITY AND IN SEARCH OF A NATIONAL STYLE AT THE BEGINNING OF 20TH CENTURY - A CHAPEL OF OUR LADY OF CZESTOCHOWA AT THE INSTITUTION FOR NERVOUSLY AND MENTALLY ILL IN KRAKOW-KOBIERZYN

A.Staniewska

Abstract

The paper deals with the issue of the design of a hospital chapel from early 20th century built as one of the buildings comprising the Institution for Nervously and Mentally Ill in Krakow-Kobierzyn. The whole complex was built as a pavilion style mental hospital starting from 1908 on the outskirts of Krakow. It was opened in 1917 and still operates. The hospital grounds cover ca.50 hectares and house a dozen of pavilions for patients and many background facilities such as administration buildings, pharmacy, kitchen and other service buildings together with villa of the director and houses for staff. The hospital complex was designed by a group of architects led by Wladyslaw Klimczak, an architect who represented local building authority in Lviv. The Chapel of Our Lady of Czestochowa was designed by Antoni Budkowski and is an important element of the overall layout of the hospital but at the same time the values of its architecture and interior design are underestimated. The polychromy of the chapel was designed by an important, although not commonly known, artist Jan Bukowski. An analysis of architectural drawings of the chapel is compared with studies of church projects of that time published in contemporary architectural press. Moreover, a study of architectural details of the hospital buildings of the complex shows that the architects used a palette of common elements to keep the consistency of the architectural language of the whole ensemble. A reference is made to the competition entries for the projects for churches where architects attempted to represent the so called „national style”. The interior decoration is an example of a creative interpretation of folk motifs characteristic of art and artistic craft of the early twentieth century typical of Krakow's artistic milieu, which was inspired by similar movements in Europe, but created its own individual works. The initial design drawings of the chapel and its comparison with other buildings of the hospital complex and contemporary church designs prove that a Chapel of Our Lady of Czestochowa is an important example of the search for a national Polish architectural style from the modernism of the early 20th century

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