Contemporary hotel architecture in the mountain landscape of the Silesian Beskids

Abstract

The subject of the article is contemporary the hotel architecture arising in the mountain areas of the Silesian Beskids. This area of southern Poland, located on the border with the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic, has been for decades an attractive place for the weekend and holiday recreation for residents of large Polish cities, especially the inhabitants of the Upper Silesian region. In XX century, there was a rapid development of mass tourism. The most touristically developed and prepared to receive mass numbers of holidaymakers are villages located in the northern and central parts of the Silesian Beskids: Ustroń, Wisła, Brenna, Szczyrk. Numerous hotels and guesthouses have been created at the time and also in recent years to service holiday makers coming from big cities. The author presents the main trends in the architecture of the holiday homes built there. The first of these trends is a guest house and hotel architecture referring to the traditional local folk architecture. We come across various forms here: historicism, the neo-natural style, and less often the contemporary interpretation of old forms. The second trend is inter-war, modernist guesthouses. The third trend is large-scale holiday homes from the ‘70s and’ 80s of the 20th century in the style of post-war socmodernism. In addition to these currents, in recent years, numerous facilities have been created in many tourist resorts that do not exhibit regional features, similar to suburban buildings in other regions. Some of them imitate local or foreign patterns. An example of that approach would be holiday houses in the “Alpine” or “Bavarian” style. As an example of searching for contemporary hotel architecture undertaking a dialogue with local construction and mountain landscape, the author presents his own project of the Three Nations Meeting House in the village of Istebna. The mission of the Meeting House was to allow and increase activities aimed at integrating the regions of Central Europe.