THE SIGNIFICANCE OF DECORATIVE BOARDING IN THE PERIODISATION OF WOODEN ARCHITECTURE IN THE OTWOCK REGION. RESEARCH AND CONSERVATION

The article presents the outcome of an analysis of decorative boarding in buildings originating from 1881-1939, with special attention paid to the applied composition solutions, board patterns and the basic sizes of the boards' cross-section - width and thickness. The author also determined the period of the occurrence of particular solutions and the degree of their popularity. Decorative boarding in architecture from the region on the Swider featured vertical, horizontal and diagonal patterns, as well as mixed arrangements with the boards following assorted directions. The vertical pattern was used rarely, mainly in the nineteenth century. Horizontal and mixed (basic) patterns were encountered in all periods, but a variant of the mixed arrangement with a herringbone or rhomboidal pattern took place only in the 1920s and 1930s. The examined technique resorted to more than ten variants of moulded and moulded-canted boards as well as canted boards. The edges were decorated with simple or halfround moulding, with the former appearing up to about 1910, parallel with the half-round moulding solutions. Subsequently, they were used only sporadically, and were replaced by half-round moulding. Canted boards occurred only in the nineteenth century. Studies of the width and thickness of both types of boards indicate that in the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century their characteristic features included larger cross-sections than in the 1920s and 1930s. The obtained results also demonstrate the usefulness of an analysis of decorative boarding for the process of dating. Owing to the considerable historical and aesthetic assets of the boarding (elevation boarding, the board patterns and widths) this element of wooden architecture certainly deserves to be protected