New venue for the concerts of the Jewish Culture Festival
From the very beginning of the festival, Tempel synagogue has hosted festival concerts. Unfortunately, due to bad technical conditions, it was closed just few days ago and we need to move festival concerts to a new venue.
New concert venue
of the Jewish Culture Festival:
Museum of Engineering and Technology
at 15, Wawrzyńca Street in Kazimierz
Just like Tempel synagogue has a great importance for the religious life in Kazimierz, the Museum of Engineering and Technologu (MIT) is a symbol of the second face of Kazimierz district that was also city’s industrial quarter, with powerplant and depots for trams and trains. So Kazimierz is also a symbol of development, new technologies and progress. Please find some time before the concerts to visit the main exhibition of the Museum. You will be surprised how many tools and devices that we were using not that long ago, have already become historical objects!
It shows, how fast the world changes. MIT has changed recently. The festival is also changing.
We are sure that just like all of us, you will also enjoy industrial character of our new concert venue. Contemporary Jewish music performed in such surrounding gest totally new perception.
The Hall F, where you will enjoy the festival concerts, was built in 1912 and has 4 tram tracks and presents 12 historical trams. Most of them were removed to make space for the concerts, but you will still be able to see 3 railcars from the museum’s collection, including type C railcar number 260 – the first Polish tram. You may ask a question: can a technological historical artifact be a symbol of Polish engineering and the country’s reconstruction after regaining independence? Absolutely, since such artifacts are a great way to tell a story and engineering successes often mean a breakthrough that sets a new direction for development.
The depot complex at św. Wawrzyńca Street is a rarity in Europe. It is the only depot complex virtually preserved in its entirety, the witness of the transformations in the city public transport from the introduction of horse trams, through narrow-gauge and standard-gauge electric trams, to buses. The buildings were erected in the period from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. The complex evolved with the introduction of successive stages to Krakow’s public transport history.
The first facilities were built by the Belgian Iron Railway Company (Compagnie Générale des Chemins de Fer Secondaires), founded by the Belgian Bank (Banque de Belgique). It was granted a concession from the Municipality of Krakow to build and operate the city’s first tramway lines. The oldest preserved building, the narrow-gauge horse tram depot, as well as stables for healthy and sick horses and administrative and warehouse facilities, were built in 1882 according to a design by H. Géron, which was modified at the request of the municipal services. The result was a timber-framed building with a brick infill and half-timbered structure (the so-called timber framing) – a very rare type of structure in Krakow.
Just few weeks ago, a new permanent exhibition was opened: The City. Technosensitivity” is Poland’s first such wide-ranging account on the evolution of engineering thought, its contribution to the transformation of the city and the lives of its inhabitants.
Embark on a journey through time – from the earliest concepts of cities, through the eras that followed, including industrial revolutions and post-war modernization, to the present day and beyond. We look at the technological portrait of the city not only with attention and respect, but also with affection.
As many as 600 remarkable technical artefacts, including some unique exhibits, will introduce you to the world of engineering thought. Replicas, models, mock-ups, audio-visual content and images supplement the overall narrative. Experiments can be performed independently in the LAB Zone using dedicated test benches. All of this to better understand the basic units of the SI system.
The unique exhibits include: 16th-century wooden water supply pipes from Kraków and Gdańsk, an F. Wichterle steam engine, wooden Miele stave washing machine, Picht braille typewriter, Edison phonograph, the first Polish telephones, a Feldfernschreiber cryptograph, Marconi 4LS/1 and Olympic-Z radio receivers, a sophisticated Capello Roma music set (with geographical scale), one of the first vacuum tubes of Polish design – a triode of the Polish Radio Technical Society, vacuum tubes from Loewe, a Gródek electric stove, New World gas stove, Electrolux built-in refrigerator from the 1920s, Fön hair dryer, Polish Fiat 508 car, CWS Sokół 1000 M111 motorbike, vehicle prototypes (including a Smyk microcar), an Odra 1305 computer, and probably the only surviving Krakow-made PSPD 90 minicomputer.
