New Museum on the Motława River!

On April 28th and 29th there will be a grand opening of the Maritime Culture Centre, a branch office of the Polish Maritime Museum in Gdańsk. The Centre will be open from 12 o’clock am to 8 pm to all the visitors (no admission fee). This modern Museum is situated on a bank of Motława river, close to the Crane (Żuraw), in the heart of the old port of Gdańsk.

The Centre’s main goal is promotion of maritime issues in the wide sense of the word, so three exhibitions – “People-Ships-Ports”, “Working Boats” (“Boats of Peoples of the World”), and “Submerge and Discover the Secrets of the Baltic Wrecks” – are waiting for the visitors.

Weekend packed with attractions
In connection with the grand opening of the new branch, the Polish Maritime Museum has planned a weekend packed with attractions for those who would visit the Maritime Culture Centre on 28th and 29th April. Apart from the opportunity to visit all the exhibitions, it would be also possible to see the museum “behind the scenes”. In the Department of Monument Documentation and Conservation, archaeologists will demonstrate how a state of the art arm for taking 3D pictures works, and conservators will show what freeze-drying (aka lyophilisation) is about. The youngest visitors may participate in artistic workshops and various games carried out in a tipi set up for this special occasion. Within the “Science Show” framework there will be a demonstration of chemical experiments conducted by the staff of the Gdynia “Experyment” Science Centre (from 2 pm to 5 pm).

Light and Sound on the Motława river
An evening multimedia open space event, starting at 8 pm, will become a climax of the opening day; this extraordinary show will transfer the spectators to a 3D world filled with light, sounds and special effects. Each of the elements of the show will be unforgettable, and their combination into one comprehensive entity will constitute a dynamic and memorable event. The space between the Maritime Culture Centre and Ołowianka island will be filled with an extravaganza of laser colours underlying the fact, that the Centre is an integral part of the Polish Maritime Museum located in Ołowianka island, at which a museum ship “Sołdek” is mooring.

Tsunami wave and a bathyscaph
“People-Ships-Ports” will surely stir highest interest among children because it is the only exhibition in Poland which shows maritime issues in an interactive and multimedia way; it starts with shipbuilding, then through maritime technology and life on seas, ends with underwater archaeology. On nearly 400 m2 exhibition area there are a few dozen of interactive positions where children (and adults just as well) will have a unique opportunity to learn how a water whirlpool and tsunami waves are born. The visitors may also see the north sky constellations, take control of floating models, and go for a virtual trip to the bottom of the ocean in a bathyscaph.

Boats from Norway, Vietnam and Samoa
“Working Boats” (“Boats of Peoples of the World”) is also an interesting exhibition: it gives us knowledge concerning history and development of boatbuilding, exemplified by original boats and rafts from almost all remote corners of the Earth, like Norway, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, Tanzania, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Vietnam, or Samoa. The boats are accompanied by artefacts originating from various cultures of the world: fishing utilities, cooking utensils, musical instruments, models, sculptures and paintings.

Shipwrecks from the Baltic
A temporary exhibition “Submerge and Discover the Secrets of the Baltic Wrecks” illustrates the history and results of the greatest achievements of the underwater archaeological works carried out by the Polish Maritime Museum. It shows a wreck of a Swedish warship “Solen” and a mediaeval merchant ship with its original cargo, called the “Copper Ship”.

Ośrodek Kultury Morskiej (the Maritime Culture Centre), close to the Crane (Żuraw)
Grand opening:
28-29 April, 2012, 12:00 – 8:00 pm, admission free
28 April 2012, 8:00 pm, Light and sound event
ul. Tokarska 21-25, 80-888 Gdańsk

Supported by Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway under the European Economic Area Financial Mechanism.
The project has been co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and national Heritage.