Theatre building in Jelenia Góra was designed by Alfred Daehmel in 1903 as an art nouveau, preserving traditional XIX century structure typical for theatre buildings and was set in the place of old shooting-gallery. Established as so called the Art and Association House (Künst und Vereinshaus), was not only for the theatre aims, but also for the centre of broadly understood cultural activities of the city. First it was equipped with two exhibition rooms, brewery, room for social gathering (called either shooting or hunting room), and finally the performance room with stage and technical premises (among these carpenter’s workshop, prop room and storage areas). Stage with the dimensions 10,5 m x 17 m was separated from other rooms with concrete walls so as to make the sounds from outside lower and more quiet.

In front of the stage there was set the orchestra room. Three-storey auditorium consists of first ground with 225 square meters floor area, planned for 377 seats, balcony of first floor for 162 seats an a second floor for 69 – what in all is 671 sitting seats with the possibility to add chairs and to enlarge the auditorium to 708 seats. Auditorium, stage, foyer, hall and dressing room from the very beginning were equipped with electrical lighting. Roof of the theatre was covered with tiles and put on eight steel cranes, which were used for the interior decoration making around them panels emphasizing the span lines. The vault of the performance room was made with arabic walls, decorated with stucco elements. Building works were finished at the turn of the 1904 and 1905. Initially, the building first of all was for concerts and guest appearances of opera and operetta groups and for shows of local theatre amateur movement. In the beginning of twenties the name of the building was changed for Miejski Theatre and for the first time the whole group of actors was involved.

            During the Second World War the building was destroyed and untouched together with retained set of costumes, theatre and music equipment and the part of previous employees in July this building was taken over by a group of polish actors. Miejski Theatre started to operate as early as on the 23^rd of August the same year giving the premiere of Aleksander Fredro play “Zemsta”, therefore starting the postwar theatre life in Down Silesia, but also in the whole West Area. It operated first as Miejski theatre, then as Dolnośląski Theatre and also was the part of combined Theatres of Down Silesia (1965-64). Within 2002-2008 was named as Jeleniogórski Theatre. Now it came back to accepted in 1974 name Cyprian Kamil Norwid Theatre. The interior of the building during the postwar time was a bit changed. Foyer was divided with partition wall and adjacent rooms, so far intended for exhibition rooms, were adapted to office rooms. In 1973 thorough renovation of the building was made. The hall was adapted to TV room and previous brewery to studio stage, which enables carrying out various performance experiments, i.e. free use of space and free auditorium arrangement. Hunting room was intended for rehearsal room, however its beautiful and style appearance stayed without any changes, (maybe) besides the lacking hunting trophies and some furniture. Rooms adjacent to hunting room were adapted to a fireplace room.

Literature:

1. Misiorny M., Teatry dramatyczne Ziem Zachodnich 1945-1960, Poznań 1963.
2. Program wydany z okazji dziesięciolecia polskiego teatru w Jeleniej Górze [repertuar 1945-1955].
3. Państwowy Teatr Dolnośląski w Jeleniej Górze 1945-1965 [repertuar 1945-1965].
4. Teatr Dolnośląski. Jelenia Góra. 25 lat [repertuar 1945-1970].

Autore: Anna Turowiec