Zakopane villa. Manor house of the Stecki family in Łańcuchów

The manor house in Łańcuchów was built to a design by Stanisław Witkiewicz (1851-1915), thanks to the efforts of Jan Stecki - an outstanding economist, minister of internal affairs in the Regency Council government, senator and activist of agricultural societies. The choice of the Zakopane style was not accidental - Stecki liked the idea of a style which was part of the current of national romanticism, present in European art for almost half a century. The founder's high architectural awareness is attested to by the words he wrote in a letter to Witkiewicz: "[...] I have often thought that no builder, not even among the most famous, is able or simply wishes to offer anything more than a banal 'Vistula Renaissance' or an ugly sample of Tyroleanism" (Listy Stanisława Witkiewicza i jego korespondentów [Letters of Stanisław Witkiewicz and His Correspondents], ed. by M. Olszańska, A. Micińska, Kraków 1979, p. 315). For Witkiewicz, a painter, architect, writer and art theoretician, the Zakopane style, of which he was the creator and an ardent propagator, was associated with the possibility of a wide application of the values of folk architecture, accompanied by a desire to revive architecture in the national spirit. Convinced of the exceptional historical and cultural value of the highland house, he strove to achieve a form in which "all doubts as to the possibility of reconciling the folk construction with the requirements of the more complex and sophisticated needs for comfort and beauty would be resolved, a house [... which would prove that it is possible to have a house and flat in the Zakopane style, being certain that the house will not collapse, to be protected in it from the sun, gales and cold, to have all comforts, and at the same time to be surrounded by an atmosphere of beauty not inferior to others, and in addition Polish". (S. Witkiewicz, "Styl Zakopiański" [Zakopane Style], b. 2. Ciesielstwo [Carpentry], Lviv 1911, p. 3). The preliminary design sketch for the construction of the manor house, prepared by Witkiewicz in September 1901, gained Stecki’s full approval. The completed project was presented at the First Exhibition of the Society for Polish Applied Art in Kraków in 1902. Stecki began construction work a year later and completed it in 1904. The Łańcuchów manor, which was built as one of three brick buildings in the Zakopane style, consistently imitated the features of wooden architecture, thanks among other things to the striped, profiled bricks laid to imitate logs. Witkiewicz also used half-hipped roofs typical of his designs and characteristic decoration.

Anna Hałata