Accessibility, Tourism
THE MOST IMPORTANT ACTIVITIES UNDERTAKEN BY THE MUSEUM OF PAPERMAKING, WHICH PERTAIN
TO THE DISPLAY OF THE HISTORIC PAPER MILL PREMISES AND MAKING THEM AS ACCESSIBLE TO AS MANY VISITORS AS POSSIBLE, INCLUDE:
providing access to permanent exhibitions, illustra-ting the history and development of hand-making of paper in the world, in Europe, in Poland and in Silesia, as well as illustrating the history and deve-lopment of the paper industry;
organization of numerous temporary exhibitions running an interesting, regularly updated website,
containing, first and foremost – next to the histo-ry of the mill and the museum – information abo-ut the museum collections, exhibitions and events, education and trade opportunities (sales of paper products), as well as a photo gallery and video pre-sentation on the museum;
organising and co-organising academic conferences;
carrying out publishing activities – booklets and folders, exhibition catalogues, monographic works, and publishing scientific journal, Rocznik Muzeum Papiernictwa (issued since 2007);
organizing “Paper Festival” – an important annual event having been organized since 2001 that is re-cognisable not only in Lower Silesia, but also across Poland. Its principal aim is to spread knowledge about paper, its history and importance to deve-lopment of civilization, as well as its contemporary use. The supra-regional nature of this annual cultu-ral event is also a good opportunity to share infor-mation about the paper mill in Duszniki and its out-standing historical values;
showcasing ‘wandering’ exhibitions aimed to dis-seminate information about the subject paper mill outside the Museum, in cultural institutions in Po-land and abroad, e.g.: Hand-laid paper made in Duszniki-Zdrój (Hagen, Germany); The history of pa-per and papa-permaking (Kwidzyn, Warsaw, Wrocław, Kłodzko, Nysa, Wałbrzych, Jelenia Góra, Bielsk Pod-laski, Lwówek Śląski, Prudnik); 40th anniversary of es-tablishing the Museum of Papermaking (jubilee ex-hibition in 2008, presented in Warsaw, Wrocław, Duszniki-Zdrój and Hoya, Germany); Passports in the member states of the European Union (presented in Schengen, Luxembourg in 2012);
organising external lectures and papermaking shows, e.g. as part of the Science Picnic in Warsaw, the ecology fair in Gołuchów, and various events in
PAPER MILL IN DUSZNIKI-ZDRÓJ – VALUE ASSESSMENT AND MANAGEMENT PLAN / PART 3
the country and abroad, e.g. in Warsaw, Wrocław, Jelenia Góra, Kłodzko, Brussels, Strasbourg, Nové Město nad Metují (in cooperation with the city of Duszniki-Zdrój, the District Starosty in Kłodzko, partners from the paper industry);
organising various cultural events as part of the Ni-ght of Museums and the European Heritage Days;
organising outdoor painting and drawing sessions (together with the Academy of Fine Arts in Wro-cław) and outdoor sessions, exhibitions, workshops, meetings with papercrafting artists (Polish and international);
conducting educational activities involving paper-crafting, graphics, watermarks and others, related to the currently presented temporary exhibitions;
delivering museum lessons to children and young people.
Numerous prestigious awards prove how the Museum has been committed to cultural and educational activi-ties aimed at teaching history of paper and its use. The most important of them, received in the past 10 years, include:
The Cultural Award of the Regional Lower Silesian Sejmik – SILESIA 2008, “for making an art from a craft” (2008);
Victory in contest organised by the Lower Silesian Tourist Organisation “The Best of Lower Silesia” in the category ‘Tourist Attraction’ (2009);
Second Prize in the Competition of the MCNH: The Museum Event of the Year – for the exhibition “Prin-ting techniques of decora“Prin-ting paper and fabric”
(2009),
Certificate of the Polish Tourist Organization, To-urist Product of the Year 2009.
Certificate of the Lower Silesian Tourist Organisa-tion, Tourist Product of Lower Silesia (2010);
Award of the Kłodzki Starost, the Rose of Kłodzko, in the category Culture Maker 2011;
Honourable mention in the Polish edition of the competition for the “European Destinations of Ex-cellence – EDEN” (2013);
Nomination to the title of the Guardian of Heritage of the Republic of Poland organised by the Speaker of the Senate of Poland for preservation and revival of historic properties in the category “the National Award for Institutions”
PRESENTATION, ACCESSIBILITY, TOURISM
Nomination in the competition of the MCNH, Mu-seum Event of the Year, Sybilla 2012, for the project
“Protection and preservation of the historic pre-mises of the Museum of Papermaking in Duszniki--Zdrój” (2013);
Nomination in the competition of the MCNH, Mu-seum Event of the Year Sybilla 2012 for the publi-cation “Patterned Papers. Catalogue of collections of the Museum of Papermaking in Duszniki-Zdrój”
(2013);
The “Silesia” Silesian Cultural Award for protection of the paper mill of great historical value and disse-mination of Polish culture in Germany and of Ger-man culture in Poland (2016).
A separate presentation should be made on the pro-ject implemented by the Museum of Papermaking in the years 2013–2016, entitled: Renovation and adapta-tion for cultural purposes of the historic building of the drying house and fire protection of the premises of the Museum of Papermaking in Duszniki-Zdrój, along with maintenance and digitization of collections.95 What has been noticeable in the recent years is intensive development of activities the Museum undertakes in numerous areas of its operation and functioning, in-cluding measures aimed to enrich its exhibition, edu-cational and workshop supply, etc., primarily in order to increase the number of visitors. Further progress in this area, however, was difficult, mainly due to the size of the property. The number of visitors to the paper mill, having been at a stable level of around 60 thousand for several years now, is very large for a place of this scale. Therefore, development in this scope was virtually impossible and began to pose possible threats to the historic site being discussed.
Considering these circumstances, the Museum man-agement undertook an initiative to enlarge the usable surface by implementing the above-mentioned pro-ject. It involved adaptation of the drying house for exhibition, educational and storage purposes, which resulted in obtaining new areas for running the mu-seum’s statutory activities. The main objective of this
95 The project was co-financed in the amount of approxi-mately PLN 3 million from the funds of the „Conservation and revival of cultural heritage” Operational Programme, under EEA Grants 2009–2014 and Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2009–2014
PAPER MILL IN DUSZNIKI-ZDRÓJ – VALUE ASSESSMENT AND MANAGEMENT PLAN / PART 3
implementation was to improve access to the paper mill premises being discussed and to make its offer more attractive to visitors. It should be noted that ad-aptation of the drying house certainly resulted in im-proving the day-to-day operations of the institution, enlarging areas where exhibitions and paper-making workshops can be organized, improving the working conditions and, to a certain extent, improving cus-tomer service. This investment, however, was insuffi-cient to solve all the problems and it failed to create prospects for development that would both satis-fy the manager of the property and be optimal for visitors. The implementation of the project has, to a certain extent, also brought negative changes to the historic values defined in Part I of the Management Plan. According to the authors of the management plan, the project involving adaptation of the drying house for new uses – although provided with sound reasons of functional nature (improvement of muse-um work standards, improvement of visitor services, increase in exhibition space, etc.) – exerted adverse effects on preserving and displaying the values of the property and its authenticity. As a result of the ren-ovation, restoration and adaptation works, a number of solutions has been applied in the interior of the building – especially in respect of the materials be-ing used and the internal form of the buildbe-ing, which are not suitable for the character of the drying house and the function it served originally (e.g. high-quality floor boards, plasterboard walls, glass wall, ‘bizarre’
interior glass window casings, secondary interior di-visions). This influenced changes in perception of the interior of the drying house and the ‘loss’ of the feel-ing and understandfeel-ing of the original function of this property. It seems that these works resulted in the values represented by attributes defined in Part I of the MP as the internal architectural form of the drying house and the drying house function being reduced to certain extent.
Although adaptation of the drying house resulted in the contemporary functioning of the institution be-ing optimized, at the same time, it had a certain ad-verse effect on the values represented by the prop-erty in question. In view of the above, in the course of implementing subsequent changes (especially the planned “Incubator of Culture”) to the use and dis-play of the museum, it is recommended to preserve all values represented by attributes, including the original function of the buildings and rooms inside them.
BELOW, ONE CAN FIND THE MOST IMPORTANT