Rekonstrukcje krajobrazu krakowskiego zespołu osadniczego na wystawie Kraków w chrześcijańskiej Europie X–XIII wieku

Abstract

RECONSTRUCTIONS OF THE LANDSCAPE OF THE KRAKOW SETTLEMENT COMPLEX PRESENTED AT THE EXHIBITION TITLED KRAKOW IN THE CHRISTIAN EUROPE FROM THE 10TH TO 13TH CENTURY

The exhibition titled Kraków in the Christian Europe from the 10th to the 13th Century was organized by the Historical Museum of the City of Kraków in cooperation with the Archaeological Museum in Kraków in 2006. It contributed to the celebrations of the 750th anniversary of the establishment of Kraków under Magdeburg Law and became a major cultural event. One of the key goals of the exhibition was to present the spatial development of the Kraków settlement complex in the period spanning from the 10th to the 13th cent. Therefore, the organizers decided to utilize advanced visual tools which could help the visitors to vividly imagine the historical settlement landscape of the Kraków agglomeration in the making. Selected sections of the urban layout were reconstructed in the form of three-dimensional screens with the use of digital technology (3D visualization). On the basis of archaeological findings provided by the researchers collaborating on the project, historical documents and scientifi c hypotheses, the designers created 3D models of architectural structures which do not survive in our times. These virtual models were then used to create physical reconstructions of the structures which were incorporated in the digitally generated natural landscape. This, in turn, enabled the team to create three-dimensional, panoramic tableaux presenting the Kraków settlement complex as it probably looked like centuries ago. The visualizations which were thus created depicted all the major early mediaeval settlement centres and complexes of Kraków, i.e.: – A bird’s eye view of Wawel Hill from the south, as it looked like in the first half of the 13th cent.; – The bailey, Okół and the motte of Kraków, as it looked like around the mid-13th cent.; – The Rock (Skałka) and the lands situated to the south of Wawel Hill, as it looked like in the mid-13th cent.; – Cistercian monastery in Mogiła, as it looked like around the mid-13th cent.; – Benedictine monastery in Tyniec, as it looked like in the 13th cent. A more active way of taking an imaginary tour around Kraków as it looked like in the early Middle Ages and a good opportunity to learn more about the details of its old architectural complexes is off ered by another feature of the exhibition – a computer animation titled Kraków a Thousand Years Ago. Th e fi lm presents reconstructed images of almost 1,000 buildings, including over 30 stone and brick structures, mainly sacred architecture. Th e area covered by the reconstruction is about 400 square kilometres, including the motte atop Wawel Hill, churches and monasteries, residential buildings, workshops and outbuildings, knights’ strongholds, fi shermen’s and craftsmen’s settlements, and the waterway and road network. Apart from the digital reconstructions, there were also physical ones: a scale model of Kraków around the mid- 13th cent., a scale model of Th e Kraków Motte in the years 1000-c. 1150, a scale model of the wooden St Adalbert’s church from the early 11th cent., and the scale models of two Romanesque stone churches from the early 12th cent. – St Adalbert’s and St Andrew’s. The Museum’s collaboration with computer graphic designers on this project opened some new avenues to be pursued by the institution’s researchers, enhanced its educational activities and helped to popularize the mediaeval architecture and settlement history of Kraków. The exhibition was an attempt to recreate the city’s historical landscape through the use of state of the art IT technologies which made it possible to merge elements of the real, physical world with the elements of virtual reality. It also created an opportunity to present the outcomes of historical, architectural and archaeological research conducted by many scientists, and to prove how great the value of computer imaging in the exhibition activity of museums really is.