Tytus Chałubiński Tatra Museum in Zakopane

The Tatra Museum was set up by a group of friends of Dr Tytus Chałubiński (1820-1889) to celebrate him as the discoverer of the values of Zakopane as a health resort. Dr Tytus Chałubiński was an outstanding Warsaw physician, scientist and social activist, a great admirer of the Tatra Mountains and the folklore of the local people. In 2009 the museum celebrated its 120th foundation anniversary.

Main Building
Zakopane, ul. Krupówki 10
phone +48 18 201 52 05
Wed-Sat 9am-5pm, Sun 9am-3pm
tickets PLN 7/5.50

The goal of the exhibition is to give the visitor an insight into the most important aspects of the natural environment in the Tatra Mountains and the region of Podhale, the history of the area and the local people’s way of living and culture. A section devoted to animated nature presents Tatra plants and animals, inhabitants of the steep afforested mountain sections, the subalpine thicket of the mountain pine, the mountain pastures and the topmost crag. Modern display methods have been used to highlight the fine preparations of botanical and zoological specimens. Botanical showcases contain vascular plants, fungi and lichen comprising the most important Tatra plant communities.

Museum of Zakopane Style - Inspirations
Zakopane, Droga do Rojów 6
Gąsienica Sobczak Family Cottage
Wed-Sat 9am-5pm, Sun 9am-3pm
tickets PLN 6/4.50, combined (with the Museum of the Zakopane Style in Villa Koliba) PLN 10/8

The branch of the Tatra Museum houses a permanent exhibition Zakopane Style - Inspirations. The display shows the roots of the Zakopane Style: the regional architecture, arts and folk crafts, as well as ethnographic collections from the end of the nineteenth century, and in particular the collection of Maria and Bronisław Dembowski. It was opened on 1 July 2009, on exact 120th anniversary of the opening of the Tatra Museum.

Museum of Zakopane Style in Villa Koliba
Zakopane, ul. Kościeliska 18
phone +48 18 201 36 02
Wed-Sat 9am-5pm, Sun 9am-3pm
tickets PLN 7/5.50, combined (with Museum of Zakopane Style - Inspirations) PLN 10/8

The Koliba villa, the first building erected to Stanisław Witkiewicz’s design in the Zakopane Style, is situated at ul. Kościeliska, Zakopane’s oldest street with time-honoured houses and characteristic Tatra crofts. In these surroundings we can better understand Stanisław Witkiewicz’s concept.

Gallery of the 20th century Art in Oksza Villa
Zakopane, ul. Zamoyskiego 25
Wed-Sat 10am-6am, Sun 11am-4pm

The Tatra Museum presents its new department – the Gallery of 20th Century Art – in the restored Oksza Villa in Zakopane, erected in the in the end of the 19th century, designed by Stanisław Witkiewicz in Zakopane style.

Władysław Hasior Gallery
Zakopane, ul. Jagiellońska 18 b
phone +48 18 206 68 71
Wed-Sat 11am-6pm, Sun 9am-3pm
tickets PLN 7/5.50

Originally run by the artist, it is a gallery of his works. Displayed in the Gallery are Władysław Hasior’s famous banners, spatial compositions and sculptures made of various materials as well as objects of daily use, often bordering on junk, which have in the artist’s hands acquired a new meaning. Bearing metaphorical, witty, slightly pervert titles, they make one ponder on the present-day world and art.

Włodzimierz and Jerzy Kulczycki Art Gallery (Koziniec Art Gallery)
Zakopane, ul. Koziniec 8
phone +48 18 201 29 36
Wed-Sat  9am-4pm,Sun 9am-3pm
tickets PLN 7/5.50

The branch of the Tatra Museum dedicated to the temporary exhibition of works of art.

Kornel Makuszyński Museum
Zakopane, ul. Tetmajera 15
phone +48 18 201 22 63
Wed-Sat 9am-4pm, Sun 9am-3pm
tickets PLN 6/4.50

t is based in the Opolanka house where the Makuszyńskis had stayed during their almost annual summer and winter visits to Zakopane between the two World Wars, and where they settled after World War II. The art collection embraces works by famous Polish artists (paintings by Julian Fałat, Władysław Jarocki, Fryderyk Pautsch, Kazimierz Sichulski, Władysław Skoczylas, Stanisław Wyspiański et al., and sculptures by Konstanty Laszczka, Henryk Kuna et al.). There are also designs for illustrations to Makuszyński’s books, antique furniture, miniatures, antique art weavings, and numerous utility antiques: lamps, clocks, Polish and French glass articles, and Chinese, English, Saxon and Meissen porcelain.

Museum of the 1846 Chochołów Uprising
Chochołów 75
Wed-Sun 10am-2pm
tickets PLN 6/4.50

The village of Chochołów in the region of Podhale has a rich history beginning early in the 16th century. The village owes its fame in the region of Podhale to the Chochołów Uprising of 1846, which was a short-lived armed action against Austria during the Cracow revolution preceding the 1848 revolution called the Springtime of the Nations. The exhibition highlights the 1846 event, an episode of importance to the history of Chochołów. The museum is located in a time-honoured cottage owned in the past by the rich farmer Jan Bafia. Typical of the architecture of the region of Podhale, built of logs cut lengthways into halves that cross at the corner, the Bafia cottage consists of a vestibule, the ‘black’ chamber, the ‘white’ chamber, the bedchamber and a small attic storeroom above the bedchamber.

Łopuszna Manor
Łopuszna, ul. Gorczańska 2
Wed-Sun 10am-4pm
tickets PLN 6/4.50

kitchen has been arranged in the manor. There is also an exhibition devoted to the village of Łopuszna, the history of the manor, its inhabitants and guests. Beside the manor, there is a small old house called ‘Gacek’. (Gacek was the pseudonym of another Romantic poet of the ‘Ukrainian school’, Bohdan Zaleski, who lived here.) Outside the fence enclosing the manorial buildings, there is a wooden cottage built in 1887 by Jan Klamerus ‘Sowa’ (the Owl), as evidenced by the inscription on the main beam in the ‘big chamber’.

Korkosz Croft
Czarna Góra, Zagóra 86
Wed-Sun 10am-4pm
tickets PLN 6/4.50

A wooden croft used to belong to a rich Korkosz family. The layout of the buildings reflects the development of the Spisz croft from a simple bipartite one (consisting of a cottage and a stable) at the end of the 19th century, to a multipartite one in the 1930s. The Tatra Museum organized in the interiors an ethnographic exhibition illustrating the appearance of a rich Spisz croft between the World Wars. In the wooden Korkosz croft, the world of peasant culture, now almost extinct, is still alive though the village undergoes systematic changes.

Sołtys Croft
Jurgów 215
Wed-Sun 10am-2pm
tickets PLN 6/4.50

The Sołtys croft was built in 1861 by the great-grandfather of the last owner, Jakub Sołtys. After World War II, part of the family moved to a newly built house while the Tatra Museum purchased the old croft with a view to putting on an ethnographic exhibition here. In contrast to the rich Korkosz Croft in Czarna Góra, the cottage and the farm buildings making up the Sołtys Croft are an example of a poor turn-of-the-century Spisz farm.


The Tatra Museum will be closed on the following days in 2012:
1 January (New Year)
24 and 25 April (Easter)
23 June (Corpus Christi)
15 August (Assumption)
1 November (All Saints' Day)
11 November (Poland’s Independence Day)
25 and 26 December (Christmas)

Information on temporary exhibitions: