History of the structure

The building was erected around 1698 as a result of reconstruction and connection of two older tenement houses from the end of the 16th century, of which the older (western) one was given to the Jesuits in 1667 by Count Jan Krzysztof Prószkowski (it had belonged to the family since 1509). In the eastern tenement house, acquired by the Jesuits in 1670, they established a pharmacy. At the end of the 17th century, the Jesuits combined the two tenements and converted them into college premises. During this period, a uniform Baroque décor of the building’s elevation was created. The building was damaged during the city fires of 1739 and 1762.

After the dissolution of the order in 1773, the building was taken over by the Prussian administration - until 1816 it housed apartments for teachers of the lower secondary school, and then it was converted into offices of the Regency. At that time, the interior of the building was also rebuilt. In 1837 the building was bought by the town and the Opole authorities arranged a hospital there. In 1932, after thorough renovation works, the building housed a library and the Municipal Museum. In June 1945, it became the seat of the Polish Municipal Museum, which opened to the public on 1 September 1946. It contained 12 exhibition rooms, 4 administrative rooms, 1 lecture room, 1 study room, 2 halls and a three-room apartment, as well as one-storey utility buildings. Since 1950, the building is known as the Museum of Opole Silesia. In the 1960s, it was extensively renovated. The last major renovation took place between 2005 and 2008 as part of the “Mons Universitatis” program.

Description of the structure

The building is located in the centre of the city, at the foot of the Our Lady of Sorrows Church towering over the city and St. Adalbert’s Church (called by the inhabitants of Opole the Church on the Hill). Its roof ridge runs parallel to the street, and if faces St. Adalbert’s Street. The building is one-storey, with apparent variation in floor levels due to its location on a slope. It is covered with a hipped, broken roof. It was built on the plan of an irregular quadrilateral (extending towards the east) with two semi-circular bays in the corners of the front elevation. The layout of rooms in the building is irregular, three-bay. The front elevation has seven axes and an irregular window layout - two eastern axes have windows situated higher than the others. The divisions of the walls are framed and panelled with rustication strips, and there is a cornice between the storeys. Between the first and second axis on the western side there is a stucco plaque with the coat-of-arms cartouches of the Prószkowski and Lobkowitz families from the end of the 17th century.

Visitor access: the site is accessible to visitors

Author: Joanna Banik, Regional Branch of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage in Opole, 7.06.2018

Bibliography

• Borkowski M., Opole przełomu wieków XIX/XX, Łódź 2015.
• Hamada A., Architektura Opola wpisana w dzieje miasta, Opole 2008.
• Idzikowski F., Opole – dzieje miasta do 1863 roku, Opole 2002.
• Katalog zabytków sztuki w Polsce, ed. T. Chrzanowski, M. Kornecki, Vol. VII (Opolskie Voivodeship), Warsaw 1968.
• Schiedlausky G., Hartmann R., Eberle H., Die Bau- und Kunstdenkmäler des Stadtkreises Oppeln, Breslau 1939.
• Studium historyczno-urbanistyczne miasta Opola, Vol. 2: Katalog zabytków – Opole Śródmieście, PKZ Wrocław 1990, [in:] resources of the Voivodeship Heritage Protection Office in Opole.