Zakopane Style architecture
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Interior of Villa
"Koliba" |
Willa Atma |
Jaszczurówka Chapel
in Zakopane. |
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Willa
Pod Jedlami |
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Zakopane Style
architecture (or Witkiewicz
Style architecture)
is a mode inspired by the regional art of Poland’s highland
region known as Podhale.
Drawing on the motifs and traditions in the buildings
of the Carpathian Mountains, this synthesis was created by
Stanisław
Witkiewicz who was born in the village of Poszawsze and is now
considered to be one of the core traditions of the Góral
people.
Development
As the Podhale
region developed into a tourist area in the mid 19th century, the
population of Zakopane
began to rise. The new buildings to house these new well-to-do
inhabitants was built in the style of Swiss and later
Austro-Hungarianchalets
Stanislaw
Witkiewicz, an art critic, architect, painter, novelist and
journalist, was chosen to design a villa for Zygmunt Gnatowski. In
his plans, Witkiewicz decided against using these foreign building
styles and instead chose to utilize the local traditions used by the
native Górals
of Podhale.
Drawing on the Vernacular
architecture of the Carpathians, Witkiewicz used as a model the
modest but richly decorated homes in Góral villages such as Chochołów
which he further enriched by incorporating select elements of Art
Nouveau style, thus giving birth to the "Zakopane Style".
This building, known as the Villa "Koliba" was built
between 1892 and 1894, and it still stands to this day on Koscieliska
Street in the mountain resort of Zakopane.
Villa "Koliba"
An exterior shot of
Villa "Koliba" |
Interior of Villa
"Koliba" |
Villa "Koliba"
detail |
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Witkiewicz designed
a number of original buildings in Zakopane, including the "Dom
pod Jedlami" in the Koziniec district, the chapel in the
Jaszczurowka district, Villa "Oksza" on Zamojski Street,
the building of the Tatra Museum, the chapel of St. John the Baptist
in the parish Church of the Holy Family on Krupówki Street, and the
Korniłowicz family chapel in the Bystre district.
Stanislaw Witkiewicz
once wrote on the idea of the Zakopane style:
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“The
idea was not to build yet one more beautiful, typical house. The
focus was something else entirely: to build a home which would
settle all existing doubts about the possibility of adapting folk
architecture to the requirements deriving from the more complex
and sophisticated needs of comfort and beauty. To design a home
that would inherently withstand all common grievances and
undermine all customary prejudices. To erect a house that would
prove that one can have a home, a dwelling in the dominant style
of Zakopane and yet be confident that this home will not
disintegrate, that it will effectively protect one from storms,
gales and the cold, that it will possess the full range of
comforts yet simultaneously be beautiful in a fundamentally Polish
way." |
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The Zakopane Style
soon found proponents among other outstanding architects, including
Jan
Witkiewicz-Koszyc, Wladyslaw
Matlakowski, and Walery
Eliasz-Radzikowski.
Outside of the
Polish Highlands
Żeromski's Chata,
in Nałęczów.
The Zakopane style
also gained popularity beyond the Polish highlands.
In the Warsaw area, attempts were made to adapt the style to brick
construction. Examples include Czeslaw Domaniewski’s design for a series of
train stations
and the design for a townhouse
located at 30 Chmielna Street in the center of Warsaw.
In 1900, the young Krakow-based architect Franciszek Mączynski won an
international architectural competition organized by the Paris-based
magazine "Moniteur des Architectes" with a design of a
villa in the Zakopane style. There was also the Chata built for author Stefan
Żeromski in Nałęczów,
a series of villas in Wisła as well as in Konstancin and Anin and a
brick tenement by Jan Starowicz dubbed "Beneath
the Góral" in Łódź,
as well as the train station in Saldutiškis,
Lithuania.
Additionally, the
Góral diaspora
has incorporated the norms and designs of the Zakopane Style of
Architecture into homes, chapels and community buildings that serve
their community, such as the Polish
Highlanders Alliance of North America in Chicago,
or the chapel on the grounds of the Polish
National Alliance's Youth Camp in Yorkville.
Today
The Zakopane style
dominated architecture in the Podhale region for many years.
Although the cutoff date for buildings designed in the Zakopane Style
of Architecture is usually held to be 1914, many new pensions, villas
and highlander homes are built according to the architectural model
devised by Witkiewicz to the present day. The museum of the Zakopane
Style of Architecture located in the Villa "Koliba" first
designed by Witkiewicz provides visitors with information on the
Zakopane style.
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