Old Town, New Contexts
This chapter details how Jan Zachwatowicz, Poland's General Conservator from 1945 to 1957, was the country's most powerful voice in the field of historic preservation. Not only did he personally direct the rebuilding of the devastated old towns of Warsaw, Gniezno, and Poznan, but in a widely regarded lecture delivered at the first postwar congress of Polish art historians in August 1945, he formulated the program for reconstructing Poland's historic buildings. Historic preservation was supposed to be limited to the conservation of buildings—in their existing state. However, when an independent Poland was reestablished after the First World War, exceptions were made to the principle of nonintervention, especially for historic buildings regarded as particularly significant for the Polish national cult.