Seat

The Museum is located in the 19th-century manor-park complex of the Potulicki Family, the oldest spatial element of Pruszków. The institution occupies a classicist manor outbuilding which in 1987 was put in the Protected Building Register. The picturesque northern face of the building hints at an Alpine style, with exquisite woodwork in Tyrolean fashion. Originally a building mixing utility and habitation functions, today it houses exposition halls, reader rooms and offices. The southern section is occupied by a glass orangery; its secondary role was a wagon shed. Its acoustic properties transformed it into a wonderful concert hall. The tallest element of the building is the characteristic tower – topped with a cock-shaped weathervane – which held water tanks. A manor cellar, so-called icehouse – one of the few utility buildings which survived to this day – is located near the outbuilding. The arched brick ceiling of the icehouse is unique in entire Mazovia. In 2014, a modern warehouse for the Museum’s collection was built between the icehouse and the museum building proper.

The Museum is surrounded by a park open to the Public. Vegetation includes various species of flowers, trees and shrubs including – near the icehouse – a grey poplar (Populus canescens) classified as a Living Nature Monument. The park’s “small architecture”, consisting of a pergola and a small amphitheatre, is rounded out by sculptures by contemporary Polish artists inspired by ancient Mazovian metallurgy. A section of the park behind the Museum’s main building is used for a display of lumps of bloomery slag – the remains of smelting iron in Antiquity, excavated at Mazovian iron smelting settlements. While strolling across the park, visitors may come across an erratic – the sole Unanimated Nature Monument in the Pruszków District.