Professor Rafal Czerner, an architect, conservator and researcher of the history of Silesian architecture, died on May 3, 2024 at the age of 66. He was the son of Professor Olgierd Czerner.
Rafal Czerner began his architectural studies at the Wrocław University of Technology in 1977, graduating in 1982. After graduation, he traveled abroad for professional internships with two architectural studios: Stefan Du Chateau and Yves Boiret in Paris and Konrad Szabelewski in Monaco. He defended his doctoral thesis in 1990 and received his professorship in 2012.
For ten years he served as head of the Department of History of Architecture, Art and Technology. From 2020 to 2024, he was chairman of the Scientific Council of the Architecture and Urban Planning Discipline at the Wrocław University of Technology, with which he has been associated all his life.
Professor Rafal Czerner specialized in the history of Silesian architecture. He received his doctorate on the basis of his work on the Brzeg Town Hall. His habilitation was on medieval buildings of large cities in Silesia. At the same time, Professor Czerner's passion was archaeology. From 1996 to 2018, he led the Polish-Egyptian Conservation Mission to Marina El-Alamein, Egypt. He was a member of ICOMOS, the International Egyptological Association, the Association of Art Historians and the Association of Historic Preservationists.
We have lost a righteous and kind, talented yet very humble colleague, a man with a big heart, warm, sensitive, witty and enthusiastic. Rafal supported us in every situation and, given a choice between his comfort or the well-being of another human being, he always chose the latter," reads the memoirs of Professor Czerner's colleagues in a press release from the Wroclaw University of Technology.
Funeral ceremonies will be held on Friday, May 10 at 11:30 am at the cemetery on Bujwida Street in Wroclaw.
compiled by Wiktor Bochenek
Professor Rafal Czerner has died
© Courtesy of the Press Office of the Wrocław University of Technology
