The main building of the Tatra Mountains Museum neighbours the magnificent wooden building dating back to 1883, which formerly housed an educational institution. It was built as an edifice of the Woodcarving School – an institution tasked with supporting the development of local industry and the talented highland populace. Until the end of the 19th century the school promoted the Tyrolean designs in architecture and ornamentation that were the de facto European standard of the day as evident in the historic wooden architecture of Szczawnica and Krynica, thanks to the Hungarian headmasters of the school. The local folk art started to be appreciated by the school only in 1901, when a Pole – Stanislaw Barabasz, the first Polish skier and promoter of the so-called Zakopane style, sympathiser of Stanisław Witkiewicz – became the headmaster. In 1918, the school was renamed the State Wood Industry School. In the 1920s it was headed by architect and sculptor Karol Stryjeński, who led it to great successes. The school was expanded and the works of its students attained high artistic value, as proved by numerous awards at the 1925 International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, including the Grand Prix for the sculptor Jan Szczepkowski, creator of the Polish Shrine. In the post-war years, the school was divided into several separate entities. The sculpture section was turned into the Higher School of Visual Arts by the then Ministry of Culture and Art. It was headed by Antoni Kenar, and when he died in 1959, the school was named after him. Simultaneously, the other part of the School was spun off and eventually became the Władysław Matlakowski Vocational School Complex, named after the renowned doctor, writer, ethnographer, and expert on highlander construction.