The museum is housed in the following buildings:
- Town Hall (Ratusz), Rynek Staromiejski 1,
- The "Pod Gwiazda" ("Under the Star") building, Rynek Staromiejski 35,
- Esken House, ul. Lazienna 16,
- Kopernik House, ul. Kopernika 15-17,
- The Granaries (Spichlerze), ul. Ciasna 4/6/8,
- The Granary (Spichlerz), ul. Franciszkanska 11,
- The Granary (Spichlerz), ul. Piekary 4,
- The ruins of the castle of the Teutonic Knights, ul. Podzamcze 3.
The museum's holdings were based on two collections from different museums that had been founded in Torun in the second half of the nineteenth century: Städtlisches Museum, founded in 1861 and housed in the Town Hall (Ratusz), and the Polish Museum of the Torun Academic Association, which was established in 1876. These two museums were united in 1930 as one museum housed in the Town Hall, known as the City Museum It was reopened after the war in 1946, and in 1950, it was renamed the Marine Museum. In 1965, it gained the status of district museum.
Town Hall
The Division of Polish and European Art - Town Hall (Ratusz) - The division is housed in a Gothic and Renaissance town hall built from the thirteenth until the late fourteenth century, and reconstructed in the years 1602-1603 by Antonia van Obbergena and adapted for use as a museum in the years 1957-1964. Its collections of mediaeval and modern art contain works of sculpture and painting from the fourteenth through the eighteenth centuries from the area of the former state of the Teutonic Knights and Royal Prussia (including many items from Torun and environs); in terms of mediaeval art, the collection also contains pieces from Silesia. Of the mediaeval art, most valuable are the sculpture of Mary and St. John from the Crucifixion group (1330-1350), and the painting Christ the Redeemer of the World (second half of the fifteenth century) from the Cathedral Basilica of Sts. John the Baptist and John the Divine/Evangelist in Torun, the crucifix from the courtroom of the Old Town Hall in Torun (1350), a figure of Mary of Sorrows from the church in Gostkow, near Torun (late fourteenth century) and three altars from the fifteenth century. The modern art collection includes a group of portraits of Torun's burghers dating from the sixteenth to the first half of the nineteenth century, of which the most valuable are a portrait of Nicholas Copernicus from the late sixteenth century, portraits of Polish kings that decorate the Royal Hall of the Old Town Hall, Sarmatian portraits (from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries), and heraldic shields of Torun's burgher families. The modern art collection including Polish painting and sculpture from the late eighteenth century to the present - worthy of special attention are the paintings from the Young Poland period and the interwar period and the years 1945-1980. In the collection of contemporary art, the works of Torun artists dominate, both those who came from Wilno (Vilnius) in 1945 (Bronislaw Jammont, Tymon Niesiolowski) and many representatives of the younger generation who were associated with Torun's university. Works by Torun artists are included in the collection of Polish sculpture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The graphics collection contains original graphics and drawings, with clear thematic divisions: those about Torun, works depicting Poland or otherwise associated with Poland, works depicting foreign scenes and portraits of prominent Poles and foreigners. Among the most important of these are an eighteenth century album of views of Torun and a group of graphics from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including sketches by F. Kostrzewski, J. Matejko, S. Wyspianski and also a significant collection of engravings by D. Chodowiecki. The collection also includes a contemporary Polish graphics. The artistic crafts collection contains pieces from every branch of crafts from the fourteenth through the nineteenth centuries, whose most valuable exhibits are a collection of mediaeval stained glass windows dating back to the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, from churches in Chelmno and Torun; stained glass panels from the sixteenth century with the heraldic shields of patrician families from Torun; European glass from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, including a cup from 1596 depicting the emperor and seven electors; architectural ceramics from Torun from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, including tiles from Torun and Gdansk; objects made of metal, including pieces made by goldsmiths in Torun and Gdansk, and guild and liturgical vessels from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries. The "Treasure of Skrwilno", a trove of jewellery found in Skrwilno in 1961, is particularly noteworthy. There are also tin, copper and brass objects from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries, bronze items from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, including an especially interesting metal door handle dating back to 1380 from the Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist/Devine from the Apengeter workshop. Also included in the collection are wooden objects, such as furniture with intaglio made in Torun from the seventeenth century and gingerbread moulds from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries; fabrics - Torun guild and military banners from the eighteenth to the nineteenth centuries.
Permanent exhibitions: "Gallery of Gothic Art," "Courtroom", "Old Torun: History and Artistic Crafts, 1233-1793," "Torun's Modern Sacred Art," "Treasure of Skrwilno: Secular Polish and Foreign Goldsmithery from the Collections of the District Museum in Torun," "Burgher Room with a Gallery of Burgher Portraits from the Sixteenth through the Eighteenth Centuries," "Royal Room," "Gallery of Polish Art from the Late Eighteenth Century to 1900," "Gallery of Polish Art from 1900-1939," and exhibitions organised in another area of the Town Hall, which are open to visitors upon request: "Artistic Ceramics from the Collections of the District Museum in Torun," "Twentieth-Century Portraits from the Collections of the District Museum in Torun".
Building under the Star
The East Asian Section - in the "Building under the Star" - this museum is located in Baroque building known as the "Building under the Star", which was adapted for use as a museum during the years 1967-1970. The collection is primarily composed of art objects from China, India, Japan, Korea, Siam, Tibet and Vietnam, which were donated by Tadeusz Wierzejski in 1966. These include artistic crafts items made of bronze, stone, lacquer and porcelain, and also painting, graphics, fabrics and furniture. Among the most valuable are the bronze objects, such as vessels, censers, mirrors, Buddhist figures and porcelain China from the Sung and Ming dynasties (1368-1661) and the Kang-Ksili dynasty (1622-1722), and Japanese Satsume and Arita porcelain (early eighteenth century); polychrome sepulchral ceramics - Tang dynasty (618-907); Japanese woodcuts from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Permanent exhibition: "Art of the Orient: Sculpture and Weapons", "Early Interior Decorating and Furnishings".
Esken House
History Section and Archaeology Section - Esken House - these museums are housed in a late Gothic building known as the Esken House, which dates back to the fifteenth century. It was remodeled in the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries, and in the years 1980-1989 was adapted for use as a museum. The main part of the mediaeval and modern history collections are comprised of finds from architectural and archaeological digs in the ruins of the castle of the Teutonic Knights in Torun in 1966. These include a group of mediaeval and modern ceramics from the thirteenth to the nineteenth centuries, tiles dating back to the fourteenth through nineteenth centuries and a group of Torun city seals from the thirteenth through the twentieth centuries, as well as related objects. There are also collections of coins and medals, both Polish and foreign, among which the most valuable are mediaeval treasure chests of coins, known as "Torun" coins, which were minted in the city mint during different periods. In addition, there are also banknotes from Royal Prussia, Polish medals and those connected in some way with Poland from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, and also a collection of ancient coins donated by a collector by the name of W. Amrogowicz, from Sopot. Militaria include European and Asian weapons from the fourteenth to the twentieth centuries, grouped as follows: side-arms, firearms and miotajaca, as well as shields and armour. Modern history is presented through objects that document the social and political life of Torun and environs from 1920, which was the year that Pomerania was incorporated into Poland. These include documents, pictures, militaria (other than weapons), and also artistic works, medals and orders, and a collection of Freemasonry mementoes: lodge pins, aprons, scarves and diplomas from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The archaeological collection presents the oldest settlements in Torun and environs: the prehistory of settlements in Kujawy and areas of Chelmno and Dobrzyn and of Pomerania from the earliest Stone Age (ca. 10,000 B.C.) up to and including the Middle Ages, including a collection of items from the Iron Age (700-400 B.C.) - ceramics, metal objects, including Scythian imports, a group of "face urns" of the East Pomeranian culture, unique ceramics and imported ornaments; from the Middle Ages to the modern era - exhibits from the castles of the Teutonic Knights in Torun and Mala Nieszawka, where many years of excavation work has been done, as well as from archaeological digs from Torun itself.
Permanent exhibitions: "Discovering the Past", "Militaria from the Middle Ages to the Early Twentieth Century", "Torun, 1793-1920: City of the Borderlands".
Copernicus House
The Nicholas Copernicus Museum - Copernicus House - The museum is housed in two small Gothic burgher houses - one of which used to be a merchant's storage space, and the other the house where the scientist Nicholas Copernicus was born, adapted for use as a museum during the years 1960-1963 and 1972-1973.
The museum collects materials about the life and work of Copernicus: a library, old prints and books from the time of Copernicus, various editions of his work Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres and models of the astronomical instruments he used. The museum also has collections of paintings and engravings of Copernicus, a collection of medals and postal stamps with Copernican themes, documents of social events (programs of events, posters, calendars, postcards and stickers), materials from research on the cosmos that highlight Polish achievements in the field, and objects of the material culture of Torun's fifteenth-century burgher class.
Permanent exhibitions: "Nicholas Copernicus: His Life and Work"; "Model of the City of Torun from the Time of Nicholas Copernicus" (a light-sound projection, available in Polish, English, German, French, Spanish, Russian, Italian and
Travelers' Museum
Esperanto); "Jan Heweliusz (1611-1687)"; "Burgher Interiors of the Late Middle Ages and Modern Period", "Reconstruction of a Fragment of the Copernican Room from the Polish Museum in Rapperswil".
The District Museum in Torun, after completion of renovation work on the granary at 11, Franciszkanska Street plans to open a Travelers' Museum there, in which there are plans to hold an exhibition titled "Pepper and Vanilla", made up mostly of mementoes from the travels of Tony Halik, donated to the city of Torun by Elzbieta Dzikowska.
Muzeum Okręgowe w Toruniu
Rynek Staromiejski 1 - Ratusz
87-100 Toruń
Region: kujawsko-pomorskie
Phone: (+48 56) 622 70 38, 622 40 27, 622 36 84
Fax: (+48 56) 622 40 29
WWW: www.muzeum.torun.pl