Żelazowa Wola

The reconstructed manor house in which Frédéric Chopin was born is a space whose shape has been influenced by many designers over the years. The aim was not just to organise a place to display the composer’s memorabilia, but to create an atmosphere and mood that would reflect the spirit of his work.

The museum at Żelazowa Wola, Frédéric Chopin's birthplace, is different from the typical Polish memorial sites that commemorate important figures throughout history. Here, the manor house and park became not only a space for the presentation of family heirlooms and archives preserved after the great composer, but also an atmospheric location where visitors could feel the 'spirit' of Frédéric Chopin, his times and his music with each of their senses.

Frédéric Chopin was born in 1810 in a manor house in the village of Żelazowa Wola, near Sochaczew. It was here that the future composer's father, Nicolas Chopin, worked; he tutored the children of the estate's owner, Countess Skarbek, and as a worker occupied a flat in the manor's left annex. It was also here that the composer's parents met; Chopin's mother, Justyna Krzyżanowska, was a relative of Countess Skarbek.

Picture display

standardowy (864px desktop)

Fryderyk Chopin's Birthplace House, Żelazowa Wola, photo: Marzena Hmielewicz / Forum

Picture image

zelazowa_wola_forum_.jpg

Although the Chopins lived in Żelazowa Wola for only a few months after Frédéric’s birth (the composer was born in February or March, and in October the family moved to Warsaw), the first ideas for honouring the composer in that very place arose in the second half of the 19th century. Unfortunately, neither the political situation nor the ownership of the buildings at Żelazowa Wola made it possible to realise the plan. The chance came only after Poland regained independence in 1918. It was then that the Society of Friends of Chopin’s House and the Sochaczew Chopin Committee had been established, to which we owe the existence of the museum at Żelazowa Wola. These two organisations worked together to buy the manor house and a large area around it. After the purchase, the process of creating a museum began.

The project to extend the backhouse into a picturesque manor house and to rebuild its interiors with furniture was developed by the esteemed architect Lech Niemojewski. Thus, instead of a run-down backhouse, a ‘real’ Polish manor house was built, with a porch in the form of a triangular tympanum supported by two bulging columns, and instead of the austere and uncomfortable rooms in which the Chopins must have lived, there are now lounges furnished with period furniture (or furniture stylised as such). There may be no splendour here, but it gives a somewhat romantic idea of what a manor house would have looked like in the 1810s, with all its attributes relating to both its exterior and interior furnishings.

Picture display

standardowy (864px desktop)

Fryderyk Chopin's Birthplace House, Żelazowa Wola, fot. Franciszek Mazur/AG

Picture image

zelazowa_wola_fortepian_ag.jpg

It is worth remembering that in the 1920s and 1930s the manor house style was not only popular in Poland but was also associated with patriotic ideas, considered the ‘national style’, so necessary in the country glued together after the partitions. In Żelazowa Wola, therefore, this pro-state desire to build a community around recognisable symbols was combined with a desire to honour the revered artist. The fact that Chopin was born in the manor house was a perfect pretext for creating an idealised but at the time very emotionally necessary vision of the ‘Polish’ home which shaped the taste of the world-famous composer.

Similar ideas guided Professor Franciszek Krzywda-Polkowski, who designed the park around the manor house. Again: most probably in Chopin’s day the house was surrounded by areas closer in appearance to a farm than to an impressive garden layout. However, authenticity was not the most important factor here. Franciszek Krzywda-Polkowski, an eminent landscape architect, lecturer at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, founder of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Park Studies in the Faculty of Horticulture at the Warsaw Agricultural University and head of the Department of Interior and Landscape Design in the Faculty of Architecture at the Warsaw Polytechnic, worked on the design of the park at Żelazowa Wola between 1932 and 1938.

This project, combining romantic and modernist styles, is considered to be the most important and interesting work of garden art of the interwar period. The asymmetrical layout of the park, with the manor in its central part, consists of native and exotic trees, ponds and water reservoirs. The Utrata River, regulated by Krzywda-Polkowski, flows through the park. The area is complemented by small architecture – pergolas, steps, arbours, as well as an open-air musical stage with a terrace-shaped auditorium.

Picture display

standardowy (864px desktop)

The manor house where Fryderyk Chopin was born, photo: Marek Dusza

Picture image

Dworek, w którym przyszedł na świat Fryderyk, fot. Marek Dusza

The opening of the museum, Frédéric Chopin’s Childhood House, an emanation of the patriotism and understanding of the national culture of the time, took place in 1939. The manor house survived World War II; the Germans plundered ‘just’ the furnishings and numerous mementoes of the composer. The building was reopened to the public in 1949 and brought back to life in its 1930s form. Since 1953, the Frédéric Chopin Society in Warsaw (today the National Institute of Frédéric Chopin) has managed the manor and park.

In 2010, on the occasion of the anniversary of Frédéric Chopin’s birth, his family home was modernised. A new exhibition appeared in the manor house, and the park alleys were refreshed, exposing the plant compositions designed by Krzywda-Polkowski to create an atmosphere of ‘Polishness’ and romanticism, corresponding with the mood of Chopin’s music. At the entrance to the park, completely new, modern buildings were erected. The idea of constructing buildings on the grounds of Żelazowa Wola, which were to facilitate the service of the hundred thousand tourists visiting the place annually, initially aroused considerable controversy. It was risky to introduce a modern structure into this impressive, carefully designed space, still worshipped today.

The design of the pavilion was entrusted to Bolesław Stelmach, who had already designed, amongst other things, austere, minimalist office buildings made of concrete, but also subtle pavilions in Nałęczów, set in the landscape of the spa park. In 2009, he also designed a new building for the Chopin Centre in Warsaw. In Żelazowa Wola, Stelmach used natural materials such as wood, brick and fieldstones to create transparent pavilions which give the impression of discreet screens protecting the manor house and park and forming a gate which subtly signals the entrance to the ‘national sanctuary’ of the great composer. The minimalist blocks of Bolesław Stelmach’s design complement the museum with functions that are necessary today, such as a souvenir shop, café, toilets and rest rooms, but they do not disturb the space created almost a century earlier.

Picture display

standardowy (864px desktop)

Fryderyk Chopin's Birthplace House, Żelazowa Wola, photo: Franciszek Mazur/AG

Picture image

zelazowa_wola_hala_ag.jpg

Żelazowa Wola is an extraordinary architectural and garden creation. Several phenomena have come together here, each realised in an exceptionally successful way. It is a place designed to introduce visitors to the atmosphere of the times in which Chopin and his music lived. It is also an reflection of the mood of the interwar years, when patriotic gestures and symbols were particularly important. Finally, it is proof that modern architecture can harmonise with a place that is not only historic but also saturated with lofty content.

żelazowa wola

frederick chopin

chopin museum