History of the Opole Open-Air Museum of Rural Architecture
„In the center of an old peasant's farmstead, sagging low towards the ground, there stands an old wooden church covered in moss, an old water mill, a windmill, a granary, blacksmith's workshop, and an indispensable tavern – this is what villages looked like in the old days. In the age of missiles being shot towards the surfaces of silver orbs, such a contrasting village will be established in Opole on the picturesque Bolko Island, enveloped by the shining ribbon of the Odra River" - this is how the Polish media heralded the establishment of an open-air museum at the turn of the 1960's. Soon thereafter, although not on Bolko Island, the Opole Open-Air Museum of Rural Architecture was established in 1961. The Museum's range of tasks and objectives was laid out, which included: the collection, conservation, and scientific study and exhibition of folk culture landmarks from Opolan Silesia, with an emphasis on wooden folk architecture.
In April 1966 the Museum received its charter and became fully independent as an autonomous regional institution. Initially the Museum was financed and supervised by the Voivodeship's National Council, later by the Voivodeship authorities, and currently, by the Office of the Voivodeship's Marshal in Opole.
Stanisław Bronicz, the director of the Ethnography Department at the Museum of Opolan Silesia in Opole, who later became the first director of the Open-Air Museum, laid the foundation for the establishment of the Opole Open-Air Museum of Rural Architecture in 1955. In the years 1956-58 Bronicz began organizing, in cooperation with the Institute of the History of Material Culture at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, a series of scientific studies on Opolan Silesia, which resulted in the collection of a relatively large amount of research materials and documents, including a list of over 20 historic buildings that were designated to be transported on to the grounds of the future museum.
In 1964 a document entitled „The Programmatic Foundations of the Opole Open-Air Museum of Rural Architecture" was drawn up, which envisioned the relocation of around 70 small and large rural buildings to the area set aside for the future museum. The document served as the basis for the later devising of the spatial development plan for the Opole Open-Air Museum of Rural Architecture. The land granted to the Museum consisted of a flat, sparsely forested, area measuring 10 hectares, which formerly served as a military training ground. The site was located in the village of Bierkowice, around 6 km from the center of Opole (to the west). The property's square shape to a large extent influenced the Museum's spatial develpment plan drawn up in 1967, as well as the present day shape of the Musuem and its exhibition.
In order to realize the Museum's spatial development plan, the relocated structures were grouped, on the one hand, according to farmsteads representative of various socio-economic classes, while on the other hand, they were grouped into larger complexes each representing a specific sub-region of Opolan Silesia. Near the entrance to the Museum one can find mainly structures originating from the southern part of Opolan Silesia. Structures from Opole County can be found in the central area of the Museum, while in the northern section of the exhibition grounds one can find structures originating from the northern parts of Opolan Silesia. In 1967 a small granary originating from the village of Sternalice in Olesko County became the first structure to be relocated to the Museum. The Museum was opened to visitors on September 23rd 1970 during the National Scientific Conference of Museums and Ethnographic Parks.
