Building engineering in mountain region of podhale – Relations between folk art and architecture

Abstract

Architecture issues in the mountain region, designs created over the ages, starting with the traditional wooden architecture are a very interesting subject for the research. Extremely difficult, but at the same time very intriguing for the contemporary architecture designers, is the Podhale Region. The architecture of Podhale Region referred to the traditional patterns what preserved functional, constructional, material and ornamental continuity. The content of the article shows relations between traditional wooden buildings and the contemporary architecture of Podhale Region. Special attention is paid to the characteristic elements, that come from folk art, and their connection to the regional style, which is independent from historical styles. In modern architectural projects we can also notice the natural visual cohesion being the result of applying native colours in the building design. The aim of this article is to answer the following question asked by the author: if at the designing stage of the buildings in the Podhale Region we shall aim at preserving the canons created over the centuries or the tradition which is directly coming form the Witkiewicz’s timeless values, so that the Region will not loose its identity and tradition continuity, which is nowadays one of the signals for our civilization crisis.