Wooden Houses, Witnesses of an Old City
Białystok is one of the last places remaining in Poland where you can still see urban buildings made of wood from the 19th and early 20th centuries. These were not only private houses but also public buildings as well as industrial facilities. Let’s take a walk along the trail of these unique monuments.
The notion that wood should become the building material of the future is increasingly commonly heard – it is natural, renewable, recyclable and human friendly. Today’s architects are increasingly willing to experiment with this material, looking for ways to build housing estates, office buildings and even skyscrapers with it. And some things have to be learned anew because the technique of building with wood has been somewhat forgotten over the past hundred years, giving way to concrete and appearing at most in single-family housing.
Institutions to the rescue
Picture display
standardowy (864px desktop)
Residence ‘U Dziadka’, Otwock, future seat of Centre for Wooden Architecture, photo: National Heritage Institute
Picture image
u_dziadka_otwock_.jpg
Paradoxically, at a time when wood is being lauded as an alternative to the environmentally destructive concrete, the monuments of turn-of-the-century wooden architecture are disappearing one after another. Few people remember today that at the beginning of the past century there were many cities and towns in Poland in which wooden buildings were predominant. And these were not only houses (let alone country cottages) but also public buildings or industrial facilities. Few of them have survived to this day; most have naturally given way over the years to new, more modern, functional, more easily maintained buildings, but some have disappeared as a result of neglect, fires, even deliberate destruction. With the owners and administrators of historic wooden buildings in mind, the National Heritage Institute (Narodowy Instytut Dziedzictwa) established the Centre for Wooden Architecture (Centrum Architektury Drewnianej) in the spring of 2021. The (obviously wooden) residence called U Dziadka (At Grandad’s) in Otwock, near Warsaw, will be renovated for the purposes of the new institution. This atypical modernist building was constructed in the 1920s with summertime visitors in mind; for decades after World War II, it housed an orphanage run by the outstanding educator Kazimierz ‘Dziadek’ Lisiecki (one of the teachers of which in the 1950s was Maria Pilecka, wife of Cavalry Captain Witold Pilecki). The neglected wooden residence was bought by the National Heritage Institute in 2019, and, once renovated, it will house an institution to improve the fate of wooden monuments in Poland. This is because the mission of the Centre for Wooden Architecture is to popularise knowledge about them, educate, and most importantly, provide expert assistance to those who want to undertake renovations and restore the splendour of wooden buildings.
Picture display
standardowy (864px desktop)
Ludwik Zamenhof Street, house of Ludwik Zamenhof’s birth, Białystok, 1918–27, photo: NAC
Picture image
Białystok, ulica Ludwika Zamenhofa, dom w którym urodził się Ludwik Zamenhof,
data wydarzenia: 1918 - 192, fot. NAC
The Centre for Wooden Architecture is intended to have a nationwide scope, so it will probably also reach Białystok, one of those cities in which some wooden buildings from the 19th and 20th centuries have still survived. The most valuable examples date from the time when the capital of Podlasie was growing as an industrial hub. When Russia imposed duties on the products of the Łódź textile industry after the November Uprising, many wood manufacturers moved their plants eastwards, to Białystok. It was because of them that Białystok was referred to as the ‘Manchester of the North’, and it is to those wood manufacturers that we owe many of the most impressive wooden houses. Due to the availability and consequently the low price of the material, both the residences of wealthy businessmen and rental houses were built of wood, and even military barracks were built at the end of the 19th century, along with 70 cabins made of wood. Ludwik Zamenhof and Ryszard Kaczorowski are among those who were born and raised in a wooden house that became so typical for the town.
On the trail of wooden houses
Picture display
standardowy (864px desktop)
Wooden houses, Bojary district, Białystok, photo: Agnieszka Sadowska / AG
Picture image
bojary_bialystok_ag.jpg
In 2011, on the initiative of the city authorities, the Wooden Architecture Trail was created in Białystok. In addition to the already existing trails dedicated to the Branicki family, the wood manufacturers and sacred architecture, this one allows you to wander in the footsteps of the most valuable and interesting monuments and objects forming the genius loci of the city. The trail guide includes Chanajki, Bojary and Dojlidy – the districts in Białystok in which wooden buildings were once predominant and where their relics can still be found today. The character of the buildings was very different: Chanajki, inhabited mainly by Jews but also notorious for its brothels and criminals, was filled with more modest wooden buildings, while magnificent residences and even the mansions of wood makers, clerks, lawyers and intelligentsia were built in Bojary.
Picture display
standardowy (864px desktop)
Ulica Młynowa, Białystok, fot. Forum
Picture image
mlynowa_bialystok_forum_.jpg
In the Chanajaki district, it is worth visiting the Sienny Rynek (Hay Market), where a reconstructed wodopojka stands tall – a wooden pavilion, built here at the end of the 19th century during the construction of the Białystok waterworks and housing a water intake station for watering horses. A few wooden houses, mostly single storey, with characteristic gables facing the street, have survived in Młynowa Street, which leads off the Hay Market, and nearby Czarna Street. Unfortunately, time has taken its toll on them, and their future is uncertain without preservation. The fate of the wooden buildings in the Bojary district is somewhat better: the most exquisite houses in Złota Street are under the care of the conservation officer, who protects not only the wooden structures themselves but also the miraculously preserved original details, shutters, decorative boarding, balustrades, stairs, floors, ornately framed doors and even door handles. Wooden houses once filled the frontages of many Białystok streets, but today, even if some have withstood the test of time, they are interspersed with newer buildings. The atmosphere of pre-war Bojary is probably best felt in Koszykowa Street, where many wooden houses still stand to this day. It is here that it becomes possible to imagine and understand what some of Białystok’s streets used to look like; in many other places, boarded-up facades can only be seen as isolated remnants lingering among brick houses.
A peculiar sight may be encountered on Mazowiecka Street, which has long since been filled with new, multi-storey dwellings. At the very end of the street, a small corner wooden house has survived. Right next door, in a building that no longer exists, Ryszard Kaczorowski, the last president of Poland in exile, was born in 1919. As the creators of the Wooden Architecture Trail emphasise:
Primary School No. 11 was located on this very street. On his way there, Ryszard Kaczorowski would often pass by a wooden house with a characteristic entrance in the gable.
Unfortunately, this wooden landmark has been abandoned for years – nobody has a good idea how to make good use of it.
Picture display
standardowy (864px desktop)
Market Hall, 2 Modlińska Street, no. 1, Białystok, photo: Municipal Office in Białystok / www.bialystok.pl
Picture image
hala_targowa_bialystok_1_kopia.jpg
The difficulty of adapting late 19th and early 20th century wooden buildings to a new reality and to a new purpose is a major obstacle that hinders the effective preservation of these buildings. For it is only by serving people today that they have a raison d’être; abandoned, they only generate costs, fall into disrepair and become victims of arson. During the inauguration of the Wooden Architecture Trail, Andrzej Lechowski, the historian and director of the Podlaskie Museum in Białystok, drew attention to this problem, lamenting how difficult it is for the city authorities to find a use for this undoubtedly valuable heritage.
Picture display
standardowy (864px desktop)
Residence of General von Driesen, Alfons Karny Museum of Sculpture, 17 Świętojańska Street, Białystok, photo: Anatol Chomicz / Forum
Picture image
muzeum_rzezby_bialystock_forum_.jpg
Fortunately, there are also positive examples in Bialystok which prove that even a historic building can be vibrant in the 21st century. The market hall on Modlińska Street, built in the 1930s, is still in use today (although before the war it was mainly used for selling meat, today it houses various trade outlets); ‘The hall is probably the only wooden building of its type in Poland whose structure has been preserved unchanged’, boast the authors of the Wooden Architecture Trail. The impressive residence of General Baron Mikołaj von Driesen on Świętojańska Street has also been given a new lease on life. The lavish interior decoration of this great edifice has been preserved – antique furnaces, frescoes, mosaics (including, for example, the decoration of the so-called Moorish study), and even historical wallpaper has survived in some rooms! Since 1993, the extensive residence, surrounded by a beautiful garden, has been home to the Alfons Karny Sculpture Museum. The use of the house as a museum has not only given it a new lease on life but has also made it accessible to anyone wishing to behold its impressive interiors and sculptural artworks (the residence’s garden has also been turned into a display area for the sculptures).
Picture display
standardowy (864px desktop)
The Mill, 11 Pod Krzywą Street, Białystok, photo Agnieszka Sadowska / AG
Picture image
mlyn_bialystok_ag.jpg
The unique building at 11 Pod Krzywą Street, where Kazimierz Gwoździej built a wooden electric mill in 1947, has also been preserved, along with its interior. Although the mill has been out of use for years, the building still contains all the equipment needed to produce flour – and is said to be fully operational. The building has been on the register of historical monuments since 2010. For more-adventurous explorers, there is also Słonimska Street, with its unusual wooden house from the 1930s in the Modernist style, which once belonged to the sworn surveyor Jan Wolter. At Lawendowa Street, you may come upon a building that, although now residential, was once the magistrate’s office for the town of Starosielce, which became a district of Białystok in 1954.
Picture display
standardowy (864px desktop)
Modernist house, Słonimska Street, Białystok, photo: Municipal Office in Białystok / www.bialystok.pl
Picture image
modernistyczny_dom.jpg
These most valuable monuments of wooden architecture are well described, and they are more often than not also cared for and preserved. But wandering through the streets of the Podlasie capital, it is not difficult to come across neglected and forgotten relics of the times when the city made eager use of wood in its buildings. Perhaps the owners of these buildings will benefit from the recently established Centre of Wooden Architecture; perhaps with support and professional assistance, their administrators will appreciate the value of these buildings, and taking care of them will become easier. For, as Andrzej Lechowski, the director of the Podlaskie Museum in Białystok, put it: ‘Białystok without its wooden houses would be an anonymous city’.
Written by Anna Cymer, 27 July 2021, updated 31 July 2021
Translated by Michał Niedzielski, 13 March 2024