Koszalin Museum

Here there is something for everyone. And a fan of archeology and a lover of modern art. Children will not be bored either. Museum in Koszalin has a lot to offer tourists.

- The very building that houses the headquarters of the Koszalin Museum has an interesting history, admits Joanna Chojecka, director of the Koszalin Museum. - Located at 37-39 Mlynska Street right next to the picturesque Pomeranian Dukes' Park, in the immediate vicinity of the remains of the city's defensive walls, the building was once... a mill connected to the so-called Miller's Palace.

The history of the facility, located on the Dzierżęcinka River, dates back to 1266, and over the centuries it has been demolished, built anew, touched by fires, and modernized. From 1880 it was in the hands of entrepreneur Karol Gellert, who expanded it into the form we know today.

Portraits of residents of old Pomerania

- The visitor directs his first steps to the stairs of the Millers' Palace, through which he reaches the so-called sacred room, where we present - in addition to interesting models (of medieval Koszalin, the port of Koszalin on Lake Jamno in the 14th-17th centuries, the building of the Koszalin Masonic Lodge and the current building of the Koszalin Museum) - among other interesting cartouches and epitaphs of members of local Pomeranian families: von Kleist, von Bonin and von der Goltz. A representative of the Goltz family is also depicted in one of the paintings in the permanent exhibition "Ancient Art and Craft. From Baroque to Art Nouveau," says Dr. Andrzej Stachowiak, a certified curator. - The painting in the red (Baroque) room shows a two-year-old boy, Georg August Wilhelm Ludwig Adolph, depicted in period dress. The portrait of the young heir to the von der Golz family, which was painted in 1798 by T.F. Tietz, was once kept in a church in Toporzyk near Połczyn, and is now in the collection of the Koszalin Museum. As you tour the exhibition, you'll get a glimpse of portraits of the inhabitants of old Pomerania through the various eras - from Baroque through Empire, Biedermeier, Neostyle (historicism) to Art Nouveau.

Visual labyrinths

From May 11, the year-round exhibition "Reorientations. Unveiling the Collection of Contemporary Art," where the museum presents dozens of works by many artists. - One of the most interesting is "Triple Composition," made in 1970 by Ludmila Popiel, a co-founder of Koszalin's art community of the post-war period, recommends Lukasz Rozmarynowski, head of the Contemporary Art Department. - Popiel, together with her husband, Jerzy Fedorowicz, from the mid-1960s, painted paintings that were part of the poetics of optical art, designed to induce visual illusions in the viewer, to stimulate the mechanism of perception at the physiological level. Her visual labyrinths are saturated with lyricism. "Triple Composition" is a painterly environment into which the viewer, literally, can enter and indulge in the pleasure of wandering with his or her eyes over areas that have no relation to physical space. For Popiel, optical illusion was a kind of gateway leading to a higher reality.

Treasures and... skeletons!

Leaving the palace section, it's worth heading straight to the archaeology department, where visitors are treated to a journey into the "Prehistory of Pomerania." This exhibition is very popular among children and teenagers, who are impressed by a skeleton placed in the floor under reinforced glass, and dated to the 2nd century AD! This exhibition also includes... a real treasure found in 2019 in the village of Krągłe in the Szczecinek district. - It consists of three beautifully preserved clasps made of gilded silver, which date back to the first half of the 5th century! - says Dr. Andrzej Kasprzak, archaeologist, with pride. - This unique find is the first such valuable discovery in more than a century. The previous one - of similar importance - took place in our area more than 100 years ago, in 1904.

In the fishermen's cottage

Koszalin is located close to the sea, so it's no surprise that a fisherman's cottage from 1896 stood on the museum grounds. It was brought here in the first half of the 1980s from the village of Dąbki located near Darłowo. The building, erected in a post-and-beam construction, houses several rooms where - in addition to fishing nets and baskets for caught fish - one can get acquainted with many interesting items of everyday use. As we hear from the staff of the ethnography department, the greatest curiosity among all the exhibits of the exhibition "Pomeranian everyday life of the mid-20th century" is aroused by an ice cream machine, a waffle iron, an old manual washing machine, or a mangle. Children can't fathom how it was possible to live in such houses without electricity, internet and smartphones!

Other interesting places in the ethnographic section are the pigsty, where the "Shoemaker's Workshop" exhibition is presented, and the 1882 blacksmith's shop from the village of Paproty near Slawno, which includes a completely equipped blacksmith's workshop.

The museum - in addition to permanent espositions - also holds temporary exhibitions and workshops for children and young people, which are very popular. Information about them is published on an ongoing basis on the museum's website and social media.

The museum in Koszalin invites you!

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