Abstract:

The paper presents educational project that was conducted in Gliwice, Upper Silesia within framework of „European Heritage Days” 2013. Organization was supported by Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, local Self-Government and sponsors. The local institutional leader of the project was Museum in Gliwice, partners: Faculty of Architecture at Silesian University of Technology, local institutions of education and culture, NGO-s and other. The author of this paper was involved in this projects as a main organizer and originator.

Project objectives:
Upper Silesia is a region of Poland strongly associated with difficult nature of Polish, German, Czech, Silesian and Jewish turbulent history. Mosaic cultural landscape of Silesian cities is a mixture of narrations and traditions.
The main aim of this project was to present the city as a particular polyphony of values, including historical, spatial and artistic ones and to develop social awareness as far as cultural urban heritage, spatial and architectural qualities of the built environment are concerned. The project activities were focused on a sense of mosaic identity of the city and on relationship between the inhabitants and their habitation space. The project was targeted at local communities, especially at young people, who may assume responsibility for future revival of our city and its harmonious development.

Project description:
The idea of the project was to show our city through the prism of architects who completed their works here. Subsequent portraits of architects are presented as stories of their life and work, with the emphasis put on the stages on which they came to Gliwice. Among the names of the artists we shall find both those for whom Gliwice became a small point on the map of their rich creative achievements (Erich Mendelsohn, Max Fleischer, etc.), as well as those whose most important works were realized here (Karl Schabik, G.E. Zillmanns, Z. Majerski, etc.). By using such cognitive perspective it is possible to look at the architecture of the city in a new way and see that individual buildings in Gliwice are works of people whose lives were extremely interesting, and whose creativity often stepped far beyond the country’s borders, thus granting the local cultural heritage a broad, universal dimension.

The project consisted of:
- series of lectures about architects and theirs works.
- Cycle of guided tours and workshop: „Architects and their works”
- Publication of the monograph „Gliwice on Their Way” (as a recapitulation of the project)
- Final open disscussion upon tradition vs. modernity: "Local Heritage - its values and contemporary condition".
Disscussion particitants: architects, academics, local authority members, local inhibitatnts.

The project has been realised from Janurary to September 2013.

Keywords:

Cultural heritage, historic architecture, local identity, widespread educational project.