Zygmunt Świechowski (18 February 1920 – 28 December 2015) was a Polish art historian and architectural conservator with a particular interest in the Romanesque era. Świechowski was also a leading figure in architectural preservation and restoration work in Poland, and he used photography extensively to illustrate his books as well as in a number of public exhibitions. His best-known work is Romanesque Art in Poland, with 28 editions published between 1982 and 1990 in six languages.
Education
Świechowski was born in Vilnius, Lithuania on 18 February 1920. He began his schooling in Poniewież, Lithuania and moved on to secondary schooling in Rydzyn, Poland. Already keenly interested in history and preservation as a teenager, he documented roadside shrines and wooden crosses placed in village homesteads around Żmudź in southeast Poland, which in the 1930s were disappearing as a result of land enclosures. Delayed by the Second World War, he began studies in art history at Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań in 1945. He gained his Master's degree in 1948 for his thesis Granite Architecture of Western Pomerania, and in 1950 successfully defended his doctoral dissertation, titled Opactwo cysterskie w Sulejowie (The Cistercian Abbey in Sulejów).
Career
While still at university, Świechowski worked as an assistant in the graphic arts department at the Greater Poland Museum (Muzeum Wielkopolskiego) in Poznań from 1945 to 1947. From 1947 to 1948 he was an assistant in the Department of Art History at Adam Mickiewicz University and in 1949 became an assistant in the Institute of Polish Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology. In 1955 he was promoted to assistant professor and was made head of monument and site preservation at the Institute of Polish Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology. He moved to become head of the department of Art History at the University of Wrocław in 1963, remaining there until 1978. He gained the title of associate professor in 1967. He became head of the Institute of Architecture and Urban Planning at the Technical University of Łódz in 1979, a post he held until his retirement from academia in 1990, having been made full professor of arts in 1986.
In addition to his academic roles, Świechowski was from 1951 until 1963 director of the department of studies and documentation at the State Enterprise Workshops for the Preservation of Monuments. A catalog, Budownictwo romańskie w Polsce (Romanesque Buildings in Poland) published in 1963, was influential in the development of further relevant research and preservation programmes. In 1978 he became head of Research and Preservation on the Management Board of , the leading body responsible for the physical conservation and restoration of historic buildings and monuments in Poland.
Travels
In 1956 Świechowski was granted a scholarship by the in Poitiers, which enabled him to undertake a year-long trip to France and Italy. This trip fuelled an interest in Western Romanesque art and architecture, and resulted in the publication in 1973 of Sculpture romane d’Auvergne; and subsequently with Alberto Rizzi he published Romanische Reliefs von venezianischen Fassaden – Patere e Formelle with photographs of more than a thousand little-known Venetian architectural sculptures from the 11th to the 13th centuries. Following that initial trip, he lectured and participated in academic conferences extensively abroad, including in Paris, Berlin, London, Strasbourg, Cologne, Munich, Granada and Bologna.
Awards and honours
Świechowski was awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta in 1997. In 2008 the Polish National Committee of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) conferred on him the Jan Zachwatowicz Award. The Polish Ministry of Culture awarded him the Gold Medal, Gloria Artis, for contributions to culture in 2009. In 2012, Świechowski was awarded the for outstanding contributions in the research and dissemination of knowledge about the Piast dynasty, early rulers of Poland. He was also a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences.