JAN SAS ZUBRZYCKI AND HIS „THEORY OF THE FLYING BUTTRESS”

KRZYSZTOF STEFAŃSKI

Jan Sas Zubrzycki (1860–1935) was one of the most interesting personalities in Polish art at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Typically for his time, he devoted his whole life to the passion of creating art, to science, but also to advancing national awareness. His life’s work comprises vast numbers of architectural designs, most of them churches, both implemented and not; church interior designs; a massive body of theoretical studies crowned with several dozen publications; hundreds of drawings and photographs depicting Polish landscapes. The leitmotif of his entire career of several decades was studying, reviving and promoting forms he considered national.

Key words: Jan Sas Zubrzycki, Gothic architecture, national style