Architecture of national identity - sacral complexes of the 20th interwar period in the Lublin region

Funding from the Ministry of Education and Science

Project title: Architecture of national identity - sacral complexes of the 20th interwar period in the Lublin region

Agreement number: NdS-II/SP/0529/2024/01

Project implementation period: 20.03.2024 - 20.03.2027

Principal Investigator: prof. dr hab. inż. Bogusław Szmygin

Project value: 1.011.450,00 PLN

Funds granted for Lublin University of Technology: 1.011.450,00 PLN

Abstract: The project entitled. "Architecture of National Identity - Sacral Ensembles of the Twentieth Interwar Period in the Lublin Region" is a project documenting an important time in the history of Poland, the period of regaining independence and associated with it a great movement of rebuilding the State and attempts to unite the Nation through architecture. The aim of the project is to disseminate and familiarize the local community with the architectural heritage in the form of sacred premises built in the period between the wars in the Lublin region with exposure of the contribution to the development of this architecture of local communities, which are often the initiators of investments.  In parallel, the project will implement activities and scientific objectives in the form of researching the unrecognized resource in a comprehensive and interdisciplinary manner, creating a multi-criteria methodology - an algorithm with a method of valorization and conservation guidelines, as well as ways to build accessibility and transfer the resource of sacred ensembles to the digital world. The area of research will be the Lublin region understood as a region with common cultural and historical conditions, where in the interwar period dozens of sacral complexes were built, mostly new parish churches, erected to meet the needs of developing local communities. The project entitled. "Architecture of national identity - sacral ensembles of the interwar period in the Lublin region" aims not only to describe them, value them, indicate the most important features, but first of all to document the existing condition as a form of preservation for future generations of Poles. The project has been divided into six working tasks. The first task will focus on the recognition of sacred ensembles, their documentation and analysis, including conducting research on regional traditions and national themes in the sacred architecture of the interwar period. As part of the task, study visits will be conducted and preliminary assessments will be made. Another of the tasks will focus on digitizing the objects and continuously making the research results available on an Internet platform in the form of a most valuable resource. The next task will be to analyze the attractiveness and tourist accessibility of the studied religious complexes. The fourth task will be to establish criteria for evaluating and valuing the objects, along with drawing up conservation guidelines and guidelines for improving the accessibility of such ensembles. As part of the task, an algorithm for assessing the value of the studied objects will be created. The typology of religious ensembles of the interwar period in the Lublin region will be defined. The last two tasks will be the organization of a joint conference - scientific combined with a dissemination seminar for local communities and the preparation of a scientific monograph and model documentation to develop solutions to serve local communities, including the proper management of the cultural heritage resource of modernist sacred architecture. Interdisciplinary analyses on the study of historical, cultural values of architecture combined with studies taking into account economic factors or tourist traffic will allow a comprehensive study of the studied resource, which for the first time will be studied in detail taking into account different perspectives and research methodologies. The results of the project will be:

1. development of a collection containing data on all sacred objects from the period of modernism Interwar period created in the Lublin region.
2. development of a multi-criteria methodological tool for the analysis of sacred ensembles
3. recognition and identification of the most important stylistic features characteristic of sacred architecture of interwar modernism for the Lublin region
4. organization of a scientific conference of national scope summarizing the conducted research and developed materials and documentation, as well as a seminar for local communities disseminating the subject of the project,
5. interdisciplinary publication in the form of a scientific monograph,
6. development of comprehensive - model documentation for selected sacred ensembles
7. digital recording of the state of preservation of sacred ensembles of the Lublin region and making the most valuable objects available on the platform for dissemination.
8. construction of an educational trail of architecture of sacred ensembles of the interwar period in the Lublin region placed on a digital platform.

Thus, the target group of the project will be the whole society with particular emphasis on local communities. The result of the work carried out in the project will be the implementation of solutions to protect the value of historic religious complexes of the interwar period and the dissemination and promotion of knowledge about them. The results of the research work will serve as guidelines in the processes of preservation, but also management. The project involves the creation of a team consisting of three scientific disciplines: Architecture and Urban Planning, Management and Quality Sciences, and Technical Informatics and Telecommunications.