What did St. John's Church look like in the Middle Ages? | lecture “Saved from oblivion...”

Admission: free

Facilities: ground floor, induction loop

The church of St. John in Gdansk after the war was forgotten and closed for half a century, and its former beauty covered with a layer of rubble, burning and dust. Restored and painstakingly maintained for 25 years by the Baltic Centre of Culture in Gdańsk, it is the subject of our lectures, during which we introduce you to its history, monuments and historical figures.

And what did it look like six centuries ago, in the Middle Ages? We will find out in this lecture. The speaker will show us the architectural and painting decorations exposed during the restoration work.

We will look at the Gothic architectural details of the interior of this beautiful monument: vaulted ribs, consoles, rib rungs, pillars, window fillings, their form, materials and technique of execution, and painting decorations.

We invite you to travel to the past.

Małgorzata Sadowska-Mathes — conservator of works of art. She graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, majoring in Conservation and Restoration of Works of Art, specializing in conservation of architectural elements and details. He is engaged in the preservation of architectural and sculptural monuments, ceramics and the development of conservation projects. He runs a conservation company. The most important conservation works at Gdańsk monuments are: the facades of the Old Town Hall, the eastern facade of the Church of St. Joseph, the western facade of the Church of the Holy Trinity, the facades of the corpus and the chancel of the church of St. John in Gdańsk and the walls, vaults, the main altar (stage II) and the tombstone of N. Schroeder in the interior of this church, as well as the facades of bourgeois tenement houses in the Main Town. Outside Gdańsk: the facades of the St. Mary's Chapel at the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary Queen of the World in Stargard Szczeciński and the southern facade of the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Piaseczno near Gniew. The restoration work on the ceramic objects included tiled stoves from the exchange office and tea room of the Uphagen House and tiles from the Great Furnace in the Artus Court in Gdańsk, as well as the cadine stove in the Castle Museum in Malbork.

Coordinator: Iwona Berent, Head of the Department for the Protection of Monuments of the NCK

Technical support, lecture recording: Adam Wośko/Andrzej Lawdański

Subtitles for the lecture: Agnieszka Drygiel

Communication: Marta Korga-Bistram, Anna Makiewicz