Visit at the neighbours. In the rooms and in the kitchen

About the exhibition

On the same floor of the museum tenement house, there is another, smaller, four-room flat of a lower middle-class family. In this particular flat, the exhibition includes a typical Silesian kitchen. Its key feature is a tiled white stove with characteristic enamel roasting pans and cast iron saucepan. Near the stove door, there is a coal scuttle with a shovel, a poker and an ash rake. Next to them, there is a bucket with a supply of coal and wood.

A kitchen cupboard with a pull-out moulding board was also an important piece of furniture, just as table at the wall, used for food preparation. The furnishing is complemented by  hanging shelves and cabinets with sets of containers for spices and loose products, as well as mortars and coffee grinders. A special hanger provides a place for lids, funnels, colanders and ladles. On a shoe bench near the stove, watering cans are placed. A small stool, called ryczka stands close to the stove as well. There is a tin wash basin next to the cupboard, with a mirror hanging on the wall and a set of enamel toiletries. It is here that the master of the house usually performed his grooming practices, which is evidenced by a shaving kit. The kitchen walls are adorned with small embroidered linen tapestries. Devices such as the cooler – an icebox – the hand crank washing machine, vacuum cleaner and hand operated floor buffer, as well as a sewing machine, testify to the fact that the family lived at an average level in terms of the standard of living.

The remaining part of the flat – the three rooms located on the front side of the tenement house, that is, the dining room, living room and the bedroom, connected in enfilade but entered separately from the hall, were usually protected from the ”daily mess”. The dining room on exhibition is furnished with a standard set of Art Nouveau furniture. As was the custom in less affluent middle-class families, a corner for the master of the house was arranged here, so that , separated from the family noise, he could relax after work, listening to the radio, reading a newspaper, smoking a cigar or playing chess or draughts. In the corner by the door, a piano is placed. This family haven of peace is complemented with characteristic paintings: Flowers in a Vase, Still Life with Fruit, and Forest Landscape, hung above the furniture.

The next room in the enfilade is the lounge of the lady of the house. It was furnished with a set made in the 1920s in the Biedermeier style, typical for middle class.

The final room at the museum exhibition is a bedroom furnished with a traditional set of furniture including a typically made double bed with a ”showy” doll seated in the middle of it, a chaise longue and reclining armchairs, the so-called leniuchy (lazybones). A tour of the exhibition is facilitated by the publication „Za progiem miejskiego domu w Katowicach w XIX i XX wieku”, issued in Polish, English and German.

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