DOI Artikel:
Bania, Zbigniew: Czytając Adama Miłobędzkiego
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14574#0018
14
ZBIGNIEW BANIA
READING ADAM MIŁOBĘDZKI
Abstract
Professor Adam Miłobędzki, who died on the 6th of December 2003, is the author of approximately 200 publications: books,
studies, articles, reviews and discussions, appearing in print since 1948. The quality of his académie achievements is confirmed by
monographie, as well as synthetic works on methodology, theoretical problems of architecture, urban studies and conservation,
discussing in détails issues concerning architecture from tbe period 14th - 20th century, including architecture in wood, brick and
stone - sacred and secular - with analyses of structure and form. He was a researcher and a historian of architecture. His research
was aimed at producing detailed historical architectural monographs on individual building with surveys and analyses carried out
together with students from the Architecture Faculty at the Technical University in Warsaw (Politechnika Warszawska). Не appe-
ared as a historian of architecture, publishing separate studies of given problems, or discussing the problems in monographs on
certain buildings. A classic study presenting Miłobędzki as a scholar is the one published in 1959, concerning the castle in Mokrsko
Górne. It includes a description of the building's history, an analysis of historie materiał, and a présentation of the complex issues
of Polish architecture at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries.
The first period of his académie activity was crowned by the monumental book Architektura polska XVII wieku (Polish
Architecture in the 17th century), published in 1980. It présents the attitude towards introducing order into the process of formai
changes by means of stylistic catégories, the idea of progress, and local schools. It is the most outstanding synthesis of this period
in the Polish history of art, with an in-depth studies that specified the direction of research of given problems. One of them is a
thorough commentary to the first Polish architectural treatise Krótka nauka budownieza... (A Brief of Building...) from 1675, reprin-
ted in 1957. Miłobędzki not only included there a summary of our knowledge concerning Polish residential architecture of the 17th
century, but also inspired many historians of architecture to study thèse issues in détail. Another very important synthetic study was
Późnogotyckie typy sakralne w architekturze ziem polskich (Late Gothic Church Types in the Architecture of Polish Territories). The
transformation of Gothic sacred architecture on the territories of Poland from 1350 to 1550 were outlined there for the first time,
uncovering problems for future detailed research. In 1963 the textbook Zarys dziejów architektury polskiej (The Outline of the
History of Polish Architecture) was published, and it has been reissued many times since then. The book is an interesting attempt
at ordering the history of Polish architecture from the lOth to the 20th century. Miłobędzkrs studies published before 1980 présent
Late Gothic architecture, the architecture in wood. At that time, Miłobędzki was one of the most outstanding European experts in
the architecture of the turn of the Middle Ages and the modern times in Central Europe.
A change in methodology took place after 1980 under the influence of mainly Anglo-Saxon scholars, who paid close atten-
tion to semiotic and phenomenological aspects of the history of architecture, as well as to the anthropology of culture. They
addressed a given issue from the oldest times to modernism, instead of sticking to chronology or stylistic problems. Thus. he
presented the highly complex issue of the présence of médiéval architecture in the early modern period, writing a présentation of
the history of architecture in wood on the territiories of Poland in his study from 1989: Architecture in Wood. Technology, Symbolic,
Content, Art, where he adapted the English term vernacularism in a very créative way. The new methodological attitude resulted
in différent views on the modern architecture and the architecture of the 19th and 20th centuries, on the transformation of the
architectural landscape of Warsaw, Gdańsk and other cities, and on the assessment of the processes of their reconstruction after the
war. His scholarly professionalism in conservation works made him criticise very severely the effects of many reconstructions
carried out after the World War Second in Poland.
The achievements of Professor A. Miłobędzki confirm that he was a man of an outstanding mind, créative, ail the time
seeking new interprétations of architectural changes, participating in creating and popularising the best interpretational and metho-
dological achievements of history of architecture from ail over the world among Polish scholars. Miłobędzki never limited himself
to a favourite period or type of building. He put a lot of fascination into researching the complexity of formai solutions and their
transformations, and into explaining causes of those changes. Each materiał used in architecture was equally important to him. not
the transformations of its formai characteristics, but the apperance of those characteristics depending on complex économie, social,
political and cultural reasons. The richness of concepts, interpretational ideas and synthèses stemming from this attitude will keep
inspiring historians of architecture and historians of art for a long time.
Translated by Anna Kamińska
ZBIGNIEW BANIA
READING ADAM MIŁOBĘDZKI
Abstract
Professor Adam Miłobędzki, who died on the 6th of December 2003, is the author of approximately 200 publications: books,
studies, articles, reviews and discussions, appearing in print since 1948. The quality of his académie achievements is confirmed by
monographie, as well as synthetic works on methodology, theoretical problems of architecture, urban studies and conservation,
discussing in détails issues concerning architecture from tbe period 14th - 20th century, including architecture in wood, brick and
stone - sacred and secular - with analyses of structure and form. He was a researcher and a historian of architecture. His research
was aimed at producing detailed historical architectural monographs on individual building with surveys and analyses carried out
together with students from the Architecture Faculty at the Technical University in Warsaw (Politechnika Warszawska). Не appe-
ared as a historian of architecture, publishing separate studies of given problems, or discussing the problems in monographs on
certain buildings. A classic study presenting Miłobędzki as a scholar is the one published in 1959, concerning the castle in Mokrsko
Górne. It includes a description of the building's history, an analysis of historie materiał, and a présentation of the complex issues
of Polish architecture at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries.
The first period of his académie activity was crowned by the monumental book Architektura polska XVII wieku (Polish
Architecture in the 17th century), published in 1980. It présents the attitude towards introducing order into the process of formai
changes by means of stylistic catégories, the idea of progress, and local schools. It is the most outstanding synthesis of this period
in the Polish history of art, with an in-depth studies that specified the direction of research of given problems. One of them is a
thorough commentary to the first Polish architectural treatise Krótka nauka budownieza... (A Brief of Building...) from 1675, reprin-
ted in 1957. Miłobędzki not only included there a summary of our knowledge concerning Polish residential architecture of the 17th
century, but also inspired many historians of architecture to study thèse issues in détail. Another very important synthetic study was
Późnogotyckie typy sakralne w architekturze ziem polskich (Late Gothic Church Types in the Architecture of Polish Territories). The
transformation of Gothic sacred architecture on the territories of Poland from 1350 to 1550 were outlined there for the first time,
uncovering problems for future detailed research. In 1963 the textbook Zarys dziejów architektury polskiej (The Outline of the
History of Polish Architecture) was published, and it has been reissued many times since then. The book is an interesting attempt
at ordering the history of Polish architecture from the lOth to the 20th century. Miłobędzkrs studies published before 1980 présent
Late Gothic architecture, the architecture in wood. At that time, Miłobędzki was one of the most outstanding European experts in
the architecture of the turn of the Middle Ages and the modern times in Central Europe.
A change in methodology took place after 1980 under the influence of mainly Anglo-Saxon scholars, who paid close atten-
tion to semiotic and phenomenological aspects of the history of architecture, as well as to the anthropology of culture. They
addressed a given issue from the oldest times to modernism, instead of sticking to chronology or stylistic problems. Thus. he
presented the highly complex issue of the présence of médiéval architecture in the early modern period, writing a présentation of
the history of architecture in wood on the territiories of Poland in his study from 1989: Architecture in Wood. Technology, Symbolic,
Content, Art, where he adapted the English term vernacularism in a very créative way. The new methodological attitude resulted
in différent views on the modern architecture and the architecture of the 19th and 20th centuries, on the transformation of the
architectural landscape of Warsaw, Gdańsk and other cities, and on the assessment of the processes of their reconstruction after the
war. His scholarly professionalism in conservation works made him criticise very severely the effects of many reconstructions
carried out after the World War Second in Poland.
The achievements of Professor A. Miłobędzki confirm that he was a man of an outstanding mind, créative, ail the time
seeking new interprétations of architectural changes, participating in creating and popularising the best interpretational and metho-
dological achievements of history of architecture from ail over the world among Polish scholars. Miłobędzki never limited himself
to a favourite period or type of building. He put a lot of fascination into researching the complexity of formai solutions and their
transformations, and into explaining causes of those changes. Each materiał used in architecture was equally important to him. not
the transformations of its formai characteristics, but the apperance of those characteristics depending on complex économie, social,
political and cultural reasons. The richness of concepts, interpretational ideas and synthèses stemming from this attitude will keep
inspiring historians of architecture and historians of art for a long time.
Translated by Anna Kamińska