THE SECTION OF PROTECTION OF ART AND CULTURAL MONUMENTS IN THE GOVERNMENTAL PALACE AT THE POLISH NATINAL EXHIBITION IN POZNAƃ IN 1929

GABRIELA KLAUSE

The Governmental Exhibition at the Polish National Exhibition, within which a modest section concerning the protection and preservation of historic monuments was organized, occupied one of the most prominent buildings - The Governmental Palace (future Collegium Chemicum of the PoznaƄ University). The author of the professional vision of the conservation exhibition and at the same time a person responsible for the selection of illustrative materials and coordination of preparations conducted by individual Departments of Art of Provincial Offices, was Jerzy Remer, later the general conservator of Poland. The exhibition, which organization faced numerous hardships, mobilized and consolidated the scattered, operating under difficult conditions and underfinanced conservation districts covering two or occasionally even three provinces and what is the most important here, it accelerated the undertaking of systematic inventory works concerning architectural monuments. The success of the exhibition finally resulted in the establishment of the Central Survey Office, a specialist institution, which from that time directed the survey works on monuments of art until the 1950's. The final aim was to develop and print an inventory of monuments of art; unfortunately, only the first volumes of the monograph were published before the outbreak of WWII.