Signs & Symbols of the Polish Village
There are many key elements to the Polish village – where emblematic places act as glue for the local community, creating symbolic meeting spaces that even city dwellers can recognise.
Although over 90% of Poland's territory is covered by rural areas, we most often analyse, examine and evaluate its territory through the lens of cities and their forms, problems, and methods of land organisation. But the Polish countryside has its own specific and vital places – recognisable signs in its surroundings, around which the life of local communities gather. Furthermore, rural architecture inspires the townspeople, arouses positive emotions, and sometimes even makes for the object of their aspirations.
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A village cottage, Siemianówka near Hajnówka, photo: Radek Jaworski / Forum
For city dwellers exhausted by crowds, noise, and exhaust fumes, the archetype of peace and rest still seems to be a wooden cottage covered in greenery and fragrant with resin. Today, it is easier to find these types of buildings in an open-air museum rather than in a village, but this construction of planks covered with a gable roof is still symbolic of the Polish countryside.
The fact that this architectural form is more alive today in the city than in its original place of existence is evidenced by the fact that villagers are more likely to exchange wooden cottages for newer, more comfortable houses which are easier to maintain. By contrast, in modern single-family architecture, it has become most fashionable in the shape of a ‘modern barn’.
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Żeromski manor house, Ciekoty, photo: Jarosław Kubalski / AG
The myth of life in a manor, simultaneously idyllic and saturated with historical loftiness, is one of the most deeply rooted in Polish culture. Formed during the Renaissance, and additionally popularised and modernised in the 1920s, the design of the manor house includes not only a characteristic frame with a columned porch and a high roof, but also a lifestyle – a cradle of national values and the main features of Polish patriotism.
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Dworek Tykocin, photo: Sylwia Dąbrowa / Polska Press / East News
It was not without reason that after Poland regained independence in 1918 – marked by the search for the most important symbols around which the country, formerly separated by the partitions, could be reunited – the shape of the manor house was recognised as the national architectural style. Similarly, after the transformation of 1989, which made building private single-family houses possible, the manor style turned out to be the most fashionable. It seemed to best reflect the aspirations and ambitions of the investors of this early capitalism.
The myth of the still-thriving popularity of the country manor house is all the more alive because so few original structures have survived. Nonetheless, it persists in the national consciousness, affecting modern designs.
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A new brick single-family house, Nowe Aleksandrowo, 1979, photo: www.audiovis.nac.gov.pl (NAC)
The landscape of the Polish countryside, especially in the country’s central part, consists of neither wooden cottages nor manors – but mainly of cube houses. Mostly built in the 1970s and 1980s with the materials available back then, they have a radically simple design based on a characteristic semi-ground floor (which often has a kitchen and pantry). These buildings were often left without plaster, devoid of finishing elements; they are a sign of their times, when the temporarily improved economic situation allowed farmers to make some residential investments.
However, the new economic situation was unfortunately very temporary, and the homes were never properly finished – all the more so because these types of houses were often built on the basis of design schemes processed and modified by the contractors themselves, as well as future users. This architecture without architects, unfinished yet extremely durable, shows the realities of the development of Poland’s villages.
The rural housing estate in a field development
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Osiedle Azaliowe, Kamionki near Poznań, photo from a drone, photo: investor's promotional materials, http://dstactivegroup.pl
The Polish countryside is changing, especially in areas closer to cities (even within 100 kilometres from them). Agriculture is giving way to modern housing developments, which is likely attributed to modern townspeople who desire to live further away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Farmers are selling their land to developers and are also changing their way of life. This exodus ‘to the countryside’ brought a new phenomenon into Polish urban planning – a sort of ‘forest village’ also known as Waldhufendorf.
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Visualization of a hybrid housing estate in Bytom-Łagiewniki at ul. Adamka, photo: INFOPOLGAZ / investor's promotional materials
This term is used to describe housing estates built on agricultural land transformed into long, narrow plots which previously belonged to a farmer. In this way, former agricultural lands are turned into rows of densely arranged single as well as multi-family housing units – strips of fenced buildings positioned away from the road, interwoven with fields that are often still being cultivated. Although these housing estates, literally built in the fields, are popular amongst clients, they generate many urban problems related to communication or equipping the infrastructure of the housing estate (there are no schools, shops, and even public spaces here).
The fire station & the shop
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Remiza, the village of Kozińce, Podlasie province, photo: Michał Kość / Agencja Wschód / Reporter / East News
While modern housing estates lack public spaces or meeting places, what integrates the local communities of Poland’s villages is still the fire station and the shop. In recent years, many villages have expanded to include community centres, day rooms, or houses of culture, in which cultural programmes or activities integrating and stimulating residents are developed. Traditionally, however, the heart of the village still beats between the fire station and the shop.
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A grocery and industrial store, Rymanów, photo by Franciszek Mazur
The first is a place for organising important events – recently, the tradition of organising family parties has been revived here. The latter is a place for informal meetings, exchange of information and gossip, neighbourhood meetings and the like. Interestingly, rural trade pavilions were built according to a unified pattern, thanks to which similar buildings and a characteristic, simple body with square windows, a platform for deliveries and stairs leading to the entrance can be found throughout the country to this day.
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The wooden church of Stanisław Biskupa, Krynice province, Lublin Voivodeship, photo: Arkadiusz Ziółek / East News
Research shows that Polish culture is becoming progressively secularised; however, this phenomenon mainly concerns cities. In Poland’s rural areas, the church is still a significant point of reference, figuratively – as a moral signpost, but also literally. A church’s steeple, towering over the area, has for centuries been an important sign, a landmark permanently inscribed into the landscapes of Polish provinces.
Rural churches, although often built at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, have historicising and subdued forms. Tailored to local needs, i.e. small, and to the taste of the faithful – being rather traditional and conservative in design, they have not exactly caused a revolution in architecture. Instead, they have indelibly become a part of Poland’s landscape and social life.
Originally written in Polish by Anna Cymer, Mar 2020, translated by Agnes Dudek, Sep 2020
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