Muzea i wystawy muzealne - Museums and museum exhibitions
Volume I (1992) Wydawnictwo »J.K. Młynarski«, Kraków
Volume II (1995) Wydawnictwo »Tasso«, Kraków
Volume III (1996) Wydawnictwo Naukowe DWN / PAN Oddz. Kraków
Volume IV (1996) Wydawnictwo Naukowe DWN / PAN Oddz. Kraków
Volume V (1998) Wydawnictwo »Secesja«, Kraków

A monograph in 5 volumes. Its novel in interpreting the museum and museum exhibition as a work of culture of specific formal structure, stylistic features and function. As such it is analogous to a work of art and, in fact it presents a junction of the elements of architecture of plastic arrangement and of language. In dissertations having museums or museum exhibitions as subjects of analysis, the given objects are usually discussed within the framework of a classification system established according to the cultural domain (e.g., to the type of knowledge) to which they thematically belong. On this basis traditional categories of museums and museum exhibitions are distinguished: art galleries, museums of science, technology, history, archeology, ethnography etc.

In the presented book another system of classification is proposed. Its premisses are as follows: 1) the origin and function of museums and of their exhibitions; 2) the type of museum exhibition content, taken in its most general aspects i.e. irrespective of the kind of cultural domain to which the given museum (or its exhibition thematically belongs), and grasped in its formal features exclusively; 3) the type of the exhibition's semantic structure as well as the way in which a message (not only scientific information) is transmitted; 4) aesthetic features (e.g. the style) of museum works, especially of museum exhibitions.

The proposed classification becomes a basis for a general typology of all kinds of museum works (i.e. of museum buildings, of museum interiors, of museum exhibitions in particular). This typology is double in character: it is comparative and genetic. According to each of these two trends it tries to show:

1) similarities and dissimilarities between particular groups of museum works;
2) the clarification of the origins of particular groups as well as the tendencies of their development or interrelations occuring between them within a continuous process of changes.

The whole monography is not conceived as a manual for museum exhibition design. Its aim consists rather in building up a level of consciousness upon which practical actions (in particular those of design, as well as critical review of already realized works may receive solid, cognitive-analytical foundament. The monography is based on the examples collected from 14 countries of Europe and the United States. The examples origin from the museums of various thematic profiles.

The text is richly illustrated and each illustration is provided with a bilingual (Polish/English) analysis. The main text (in Polish) is accompanied by a large English summary. All definitions of particular groups are formulated in two languages.

For purchase of the book please contact:

Księgarnia Ossolineum-Kraków, ul. sw. Marka 12, 31-018 Kraków, Poland phone/fax: (+48) (12) 422-58-44; e-mail: ossolineum@fv.pl

Author's website: http://www.isez.pan.krakow.pl/gen_info/swiecimski.htm

Author's e-mail: prajer@isez.pan.krakow.pl