Weaver's House Museum
Encyclopedia
The Weaver’s House is a unique example of the 18th-century craftsman
American Craftsman
The American Craftsman Style, or the American Arts and Crafts Movement, is an American domestic architectural, interior design, landscape design, applied arts, and decorative arts style and lifestyle philosophy that began in the last years of the 19th century. As a comprehensive design and art...

 architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

. Located in Bielsko-Biała
Bielsko-Biała
-Economy and Industry:Nowadays Bielsko-Biała is one of the best-developed parts of Poland. It was ranked 2nd best city for business in that country by Forbes. About 5% of people are unemployed . Bielsko-Biała is famous for its textile, machine-building, and especially automotive industry...

, it is situated in the Old Uptown in a log cabin
Log cabin
A log cabin is a house built from logs. It is a fairly simple type of log house. A distinction should be drawn between the traditional meanings of "log cabin" and "log house." Historically most "Log cabins" were a simple one- or 1½-story structures, somewhat impermanent, and less finished or less...

 with its characteristic hay
Hay
Hay is grass, legumes or other herbaceous plants that have been cut, dried, and stored for use as animal fodder, particularly for grazing livestock such as cattle, horses, goats, and sheep. Hay is also fed to pets such as rabbits and guinea pigs...

 store. The building is a museum branch belonging to the Museum in Bielsko-Biała

The building functioned as a house and a workshop
Workshop
A workshop is a room or building which provides both the area and tools that may be required for the manufacture or repair of manufactured goods...

 until the beginnings of the 20th century. The information about its tenants is incomplete. In the second half of the 18th century it certainly was the Bartke family’s and in the 19th century the Bathelts’. From 1873 the owner of the building was Carl Nowak and after his death - Marie, the widow. At the beginning of the 20th century it belonged to the local shoemaker, Antoni Polończyk After the World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 the building became a tenement house until Antoni’s son, Wiktor Polończyk, donated it to the Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 State in 1974 in order to establish a museum
Museum
A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...

there. When in 1992 the long-lasting renovation works finished, the District Museum in Bielsko-Biała
Bielsko-Biała
-Economy and Industry:Nowadays Bielsko-Biała is one of the best-developed parts of Poland. It was ranked 2nd best city for business in that country by Forbes. About 5% of people are unemployed . Bielsko-Biała is famous for its textile, machine-building, and especially automotive industry...

 opened the exhibition to the public.

Museum Exhibition

The Museum exhibition presents the interiors of the house and the workshop belonging to a guild
Guild
A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...

 master – the highest in rank guild representative. They show what it looked like at the turn of the 19th century, when the importance and greatness of the handicraft
Handicraft
Handicraft, more precisely expressed as artisanic handicraft, sometimes also called artisanry, is a type of work where useful and decorative devices are made completely by hand or by using only simple tools. It is a traditional main sector of craft. Usually the term is applied to traditional means...

 (in terms of the textile industry
Textile industry
The textile industry is primarily concerned with the production of yarn, and cloth and the subsequent design or manufacture of clothing and their distribution. The raw material may be natural, or synthetic using products of the chemical industry....

) lessened because of the sudden and rapid introduction of machines.
The hallway divides the building into two parts: the workshop on the left and the living area on the right. The workshop' is the largest room, containing objects connected with the weaver’s work. The most impressive is the large harness loom dating back to the 18th century used for making wool textiles and there are also devices used for warping
Warp (weaving)
In weaving cloth, the warp is the set of lengthwise yarns that are held in tension on a frame or loom. The yarn that is inserted over-and-under the warp threads is called the weft, woof, or filler. Each individual warp thread in a fabric is called a warp end or end. Warp means "that which is thrown...

. A part of this room was devoted for the office work which consisted in handling the guild matters and settling disputes between craftsmen. All documents, guild heirlooms and the iron coffer used as the guild strongbox are stored here. The workshop also served as an apprentice's bedroom, that is why there is some of his equipment next to the stove.
From the workshop the hallway leads to the kitchen - the place of everyday family and social life. This room holds dishes, kitchen utensils and everyday use objects as well as objects connected with weaving
Weaving
Weaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling...

. There is a small loom (19th century) and the visitors have a chance to see how it works. Besides you can see a spinning wheel
Spinning wheel
A spinning wheel is a device for spinning thread or yarn from natural or synthetic fibers. Spinning wheels appeared in Asia, probably in the 11th century, and very gradually replaced hand spinning with spindle and distaff...

 and a reel
Reel
A reel is an object around which lengths of another material are wound for storage. Generally a reel has a cylindrical core and walls on the sides to retain the material wound around the core...

.
Next to the kitchen there is a bedroom and a sort of living room, used only on special occasions, whitewashed, arranged with veneered
Wood veneer
In woodworking, veneer refers to thin slices of wood, usually thinner than 3 mm , that are typically glued onto core panels to produce flat panels such as doors, tops and panels for cabinets, parquet floors and parts of furniture. They are also used in marquetry...

 furniture from the turn of the 19th century.
As a supplement to the exhibition on the display there are Jan Wałach’s woodcut
Woodcut
Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...

s presenting weavers at work.

See also

  • Bielsko-Biała Museum
  • The Museum of Technology and Textile Industry
  • Bielsko-Biała
    Bielsko-Biała
    -Economy and Industry:Nowadays Bielsko-Biała is one of the best-developed parts of Poland. It was ranked 2nd best city for business in that country by Forbes. About 5% of people are unemployed . Bielsko-Biała is famous for its textile, machine-building, and especially automotive industry...


External links

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