Castles around Liberec

Liberec is considered a modern industrial city, in whose vicinity few would look for medieval castles. The development of these exceptional historical structures spans at least three centuries of intense transformations, from simple wooden log cabins to complex fortress systems or modern aristocratic chateaux. A castle combined military, residential, and administrative functions, and each castle still holds its unique place in our history. However, they are not isolated objects; there are many connections between them, the uncovering and presentation of which is the task of contemporary historians and archaeologists who are preparing this exhibition project based on their current findings. The exhibition presents the castle as a phenomenon, i.e., a general category that manifested specifically and tangibly in the given place and time in the "Liberec" cases.

The core of the exhibition consists of reconstructive 3D models of local castles at a scale of 1:72, which were created based on precise technical surveys of preserved building fragments and the surrounding terrain. The models will present the earliest forms of the castles of Grabštejn, Hamrštejn, Frýdlant, Návarov, Jezdec, and Roimund.

The aim of the exhibition is to show the connections and contexts of local castles. The historical context in the broader sense of the word is followed by architectural, military, heraldic, or religious contexts, always to a degree corresponding to our current state of knowledge. At the same time, we will look for geological and geographical, social, and even political contexts. Because a castle is not just a building in the landscape; a castle is also a strategic strongpoint, an administrative center, a dwelling, and a refuge, it could even have been the seat of a religious community.

Every castle has its unique life. It was founded in a certain way, developed in a certain way, and ended in a certain way. Sometimes in ruins, sometimes transformed into another object, sometimes disappearing completely even from memory to the extent that we don't know what its name actually was. The exhibition also takes this context into account, contrasting the ideal reconstructions of the models with the documented current situation. The exhibition is realized in cooperation with the Curia Vítkov center, which will provide functional replicas of medieval war machines in actual scale and offer a program for accompanying activities, especially workshops focused on medieval crafts and daily life in castles. A representative publication is being prepared for the exhibition.

The exhibition is realized thanks to the financial support of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.