Internal historical form of the structures

Paper mill

Nowadays, the interior of the lower ground floor of the paper mill, where the paper making process used to begin, features a hall covering a large part of the building at its entire width. It is supported by four brick pillars and, in its north-east corner, it features a room of small size. Additionally, there is a small room in the south-east corner. In the west, there are two rooms adjacent to this hall, which were re-adapt-ed and dividre-adapt-ed along the crosswise axis of the paper mill into four. In the south part of the main hall, there is a wooden platform dividing the interior into two levels.

After the war, the functional division of the low-er ground floor was changed sevlow-eral times. As be-fore the war, the paper mill and its equipment were

ANALYSIS OF THE VALUES OF THE PROPERTY

Photo 30. Paper mill facing south-east, 1938?, http://dolny-slask.org.pl/860198,foto.html?idEntity=518292

Photo 32. The mill and the drying house facing south-west Photo by A. Fortuna-Marek

Photo 31. South-facing wall of the drying house Photo by A. Fortuna-Marek

Photo 33. Drying house facing north-east Photo by A. Fortuna-Marek

PAPER MILL IN DUSZNIKI-ZDRÓJ – VALUE ASSESSMENT AND MANAGEMENT PLAN / PART 1

Photo 34. Entrance pavillion and the bridge facing north Photo by A. Fortuna-Marek

Photo 35. Entrance pavillion facing north-east Photo by A. Fortuna-Marek

already in poor condition and after the war a major part of tools and machines were destroyed, it is diffi-cult to reconstruct the functions that individual parts of the lower ground floor used to serve before the war. Inventory of the paper mill made in 1960 pro-vides insight into the purposes for which the lower ground floor used to be used: “Inside the main build-ing, on its lower ground floor, there were manufac-turing rooms (...). On the lower ground floor, there was a large hall stretching over the width of the entire building, covered with beam ceiling and binding joist running along the longer axis of the building. It was founded on masonry and wooden supports. In a part of the room, there was a wooden platform dividing the interior into two low levels. In the ceiling above the platform, there used to be two square chutes [cur-rently non-existent – AFM]. In the south-west corner, there are small doors by which two conjoined pools are situated. In the floor, there was a channel run-ning to the other room. There were also two small-er rooms conjoined to the main production hall: one in the front section, featuring a barrel vault, watch glass, four windows, and a stone-made pool in the centre; the second room was located at the back of the building and featured a cross-barrel vault and one window.”³² T. Windyka also makes an attempt to re-construct the functional division of the interior of the lower ground floor: “in the lower ground floor of the main building there were three production rooms.

In the largest room, which is currently used as the main paper production workshop, important pa-permaking equipment, e.g. mortar, might have been operated. Presumably, that was also the place for washing rags, which were dropped through the chutes from the sorting room located on the upper floor. In the production hall, there were water chan-nels carved in the floor supplying water to the pa-per mill equipment, e.g. the mortar. The adjacent room (at present, for example, a sand container can be found here) featuring barrel vault and watch glass, was used for rag maceration, which made it easier to garnet and grind the rags. The rags, once being mac-erated, were moistened and heated in a special con-tainer. This conclusion is based on the remnants of the flue duct removed in 1912. In the adjacent room

32 M. Kutzner, “Czeska papiernia w Dusznikach,” in Artem ad vitam. Kniha kpocte Ivo Hlobila, H. Danova, K.

Mezihorakova, D. Prix (eds.), Praha 2012, pp. 548.

ANALYSIS OF THE VALUES OF THE PROPERTY

Photo 36. Part of the hall in the lower ground floor of the paper mill. Photo by A. Fortuna-Marek

Photo 37. Dutchman used for. Photo by A. Fortuna-Marek

Photo 39. Polychrome decorations in the first room on the first attic floor Museum of Papermaking Archive

Photo 40. Paper mill attic, currently not used for any purposes. Photo by A. Fortuna-Marek

(currently printing room), which also features barrel vault and lunettes, there used to be a gluing room and dry press³³.”

At present, in accordance with the original use, the low-er ground floor featuring a large hall is used for hand-making laid paper. In the rooms located in the west part of the building, furnish was processed and puri-fied. Moreover, there is a drying room of small size, staff area and a training room. On the lower ground floor, one can also find paper laying equipment. Original ma-chines have not been preserved and the existing ones consist of both reconstructed and original elements

33 T. Windyka, “Młyn papierniczy w Dusznikach,”

Muzealnictwo vol. 41, Warsaw 1999, pp. 16–17

acquired from other paper mills located in Poland. The equipment includes in particular: grinding machine, also called the ‘Dutchman’, purifying equipment, paper lay-ing vats, drainlay-ing presses, and the smoothlay-ing press.

There is also a contemporarily arranged training room for delivering museum science classes. Other rooms on the lower ground floor serve staff and warehousing purposes.

This layout is typical of a paper mill as a manufacturing workshop.

Spatial arrangement of the second floor: two-bay with entrance hall in the north bay. Bays in the east part are divided by a corridor. The building on this level was initially used for manufacturing and res-idential purposes – it is assumed that a rag sort-ing room and paper stock room used to be located here; Moreover, paper mill owners’ flat was arranged

PAPER MILL IN DUSZNIKI-ZDRÓJ – VALUE ASSESSMENT AND MANAGEMENT PLAN / PART 1

Photo 38. The main foyer in the paper mill building Museum of Papermaking Archive

Photo 41. Portal on the second floor of the paper mill Photo by A. Fortuna-Marek

Photo 42. Contemporary display of a toilet in the bay latrine.

Photo by A. Fortuna-Marek

in the three rooms situated in the west part of the building.

Currently, apart from the entrance hall, there are six office rooms and five exhibition rooms where collec-tions covering the history of papermaking, i.e. of the paper mill in Duszniki, other mills in Lower Silesia, Po-land, and around the world are showcased. Although the room layout on this floor has not been radically modified, conversion of the paper mill into museum resulted in the functional plan being altered. What vis-itors beginning their visit to the museum will find in the hall is collections and memorabilia covering the history of the paper mill – seventeenth- and eighteenth-cen-tury portraits of paper makers of Duszniki. Currently, rooms on this floor are used for office and exhibition purposes.

Nowadays, the residential rooms which used to be ar-ranged on the second floor no longer serve their origi-nal purpose. Following the paper mill’s conversion into museum, the functions served by the former sorting room and rag stockroom have changed as well.

Three upper (attic) floors were used predominantly for draining paper, except for two rooms on the first at-tic floor, which were originally used as owners’ sum-mer flat. Well-preserved wall and ceiling paintings are the evidence of the original use of these rooms. Cur-rently, the entire floor is used for exhibiting museum collections. Its original layout is preserved, including

a large room in the part facing east, which covers near-ly a half of the floor area, and six rooms seated in two bays along the east-west axis. Two most upper attic floors are arranged in form of open space and are not currently used.

Inside the mill, there are peculiar and unique stone-made portals – the fascia portal on the second floor is of particular importance as it is dated at the third quar-ter of the sixteenth century.³⁴

In the south-west room on the second floor, there is a peculiar structure projecting outside the building – a bay latrine dating at the 16^th century, which features contemporary toilet display.

Analyses and date studies on certain elements of the interior, which were conducted by R. Eysymontt are of particular importance to the description of the origi-nal interorigi-nal form of the building. This includes, for in-stance seventeenth-century vaults in the lower ground floor, the eighteenth-century staircase, walls and ceil-ings supported by voluta-profiled struts located above the corridor on the second floor. Furthermore, it is also worth noticing certain similarities between the layout

34 R. Eysymontt, “Przemiany architektoniczne młyna...,”

Rocznik Muzeum Papiernictwa, vol. 10, Duszniki-Zdrój 2016, p. 26

ANALYSIS OF THE VALUES OF THE PROPERTY

Photo 43. Drying house – interior after renovation works

Photo A. Fortuna-Marek Photo 44. Drying house – interior after renovation works Photo by A. Fortuna-Marek

of the second floor and the design of two-bay palaces two-bay palaces³⁵.

The spatial plan of the interior of the paper mill as well as a number of elements of architectural detail-ing typical of old paper mills have been preserved.

These include paper laying rooms where paper sheets were hand-formed, the structure of the raft-er framing sectioning off large multi-storey attics used for draining paper, roofs with vent bores, and vent windows on gable walls. The distinctive archi-tectural form of the buildings (the external form in particular) was neither affected by the richness of accumulated historical heritage created in different periods nor damaged by contemporary interven-tions to the historic site. The important combination of the form, function and materials applied is still very clear.

The seventeenth-century spatial and functional plans of the interior of the main building underwent con-siderable changes in the early twentieth century. The reason was that the laid paper was no longer hand-made – manual manufacturing was replaced by ma-chines. In order to meet technical requirements im-posed by the new production process, paper mill owners adapted the ground floor of the main build-ing to new use by installbuild-ing a small papermakbuild-ing ma-chine and equipment for making paper furnish out of

35 R. Eysymontt, “Przemiany architektoniczne młyna...,” Rocznik Muzeum Papiernictwa, vol. 10, Duszniki-Zdrój 2016, p. 18

ground rags. Further changes were made during ad-aptation works and, afterwards, when the mill started to function as the museum. In spite of the changes, the building is still clearly divided into two areas – the production part on the lower ground floor and the residential part decorated with polychrome paintings (summer flat) on the first attic floor. What is, however, no longer displayed is the functional division of the first floor the subject paper mill into production and residential areas.

Drying house

In its west part, the drying house, rectangular in floor plan, is conjoined to the paper mill building by a passage. On the first and second floors, the dry-ing house is divided into two bays. Other floors are open-space. Original functional plan is unknown.

What we know, however, is that originally, the build-ing was used for drainbuild-ing paper and keepbuild-ing stock.

Currently, the drying house is being adapted for new use.

PAPER MILL IN DUSZNIKI-ZDRÓJ – VALUE ASSESSMENT AND MANAGEMENT PLAN / PART 1

2.1.5 Decorations inside the paper mill36