Willa Koliba

Willa Koliba on Koscieliska street is the first house built in the Zakopane Style. It was designed by the painter and writer Stanislaw Witkiewicz and put up in 1892 to 1893 by local carpenters, as an attempt to turn highland building traditions into a full architectural language. Today it holds a museum of that style and of highland decorative art, run as part of the Tatra Museum.

This is where the Zakopane Style began, so it is the natural starting point for anyone interested in the wooden villas you see across town. The house shows how Witkiewicz took the forms of a highland cottage, the steep roof, the carved beams and joinery, and worked them into a designed interior. The rooms are set out with period furniture, stoves and objects. See the Zakopane guide for the other buildings in the same tradition.

The house was commissioned by Zygmunt Gnatowski, a collector taken with the culture of the Tatras, whom Witkiewicz persuaded to build in the new style rather than as a plain cottage. Built in 1892 to 1893, it became the model for a whole movement in Polish architecture and applied art. A large wing was added at the start of the 1900s. Almost a century after it was built, the Museum of the Zakopane Style opened here in 1993.

Inside, several rooms in the oldest part of the house are arranged to reflect their original use, from the dining room and drawing room to the bedrooms upstairs. The display covers Witkiewicz's designs for furniture, stoves, textiles and even small metal fittings, alongside examples of highland folk craft. The building itself, with its carved detailing and steep shingled roof, is as much the exhibit as the objects.

Allow about an hour to go through the rooms at a steady pace. Combined with the nearby cemetery and a walk along the old part of Koscieliska street, it makes an easy half-day.

Willa Koliba stands at Koscieliska 18, a short walk from the top of Krupowki along one of the oldest streets in Zakopane. It is easy to reach on foot from the centre of town.

The villa is at the historic end of town, close to several other sights:

• Stary Cmentarz na Peksowym Brzyzku, the old cemetery, a little further along the street.
• Krupowki, the main street, a few minutes east.
• Gubalowka, whose funicular base is within walking distance.

It is an architectural and design style created by Stanislaw Witkiewicz in the 1890s, based on the wooden building and folk art of the Podhale highlanders. Willa Koliba was its first built example.

Stanislaw Witkiewicz designed it, and it was built in 1892 to 1893 for the collector Zygmunt Gnatowski. It now houses the Museum of the Zakopane Style.