Skanseny, The open-Air Museums of Poland

EN: Open-air museums, skansen in their Scandinavian name, have a rich specialist literature, but this is the first time in their nigh on a hundred years' presence on Polish soil that an album is being published about them. This is an invaluable undertaking, since open-air museums display the cultures of particular social groups and pass onto posterity what “dwells in a nation's soul”. In the Polish cultural tradition there is a marked contribution from building in wood. Unfortunately the preservation of wooden edifices in situ has proved extremely difficult, and often impossible in practice. But in the open-air museums the architecture of the buildings and the natural features of the chosen site, magnificent trees, water, and the gardens laid out around the homestead with their traditional cultivation of plants and flowers, usually offer faithful reproductions of a forgotten rural landscape and its arrangement, a region's past and tradition. PL: Pięknie wydany album w pełni oddaje bardzo różnorodne walory muzeów na wolnym powietrzu, prezentuje złożoność zagadnień z nimi związanych.