The house is an example of a large rural residential building featuring a pronounced arcade projecting out of its front facade; in most cases, arcades of this kind were notable for their lavish decorations. The house in Lipce represents the earliest type of the arcaded house, with an arcade projecting out of the shorter side of the house. The building is the oldest of its kind in the entire region.

History

The building was erected in the former village of Lipce (Lipicz, also known as Guteherberge in German), currently the southern district of Gdańsk. Before being incorporated into the city of Gdańsk, Lipce was a peasant village located a few kilometres from the city, by the road leading from Gdańsk to Tczew. The earliest mentions of the village appear in documents dating back to the 14th century. In the 19th century, the village had the surface of 1735 morgs and was inhabited by 20 farmers (landowners) and 368 residents in total. The house at 297 Trakt św. Wojciecha street was most probably built in the first half of the 17th century (although some researches believe that it originates from the second half of the 16th century) and was the property of a wealthy peasant landowner. Conservation and restoration works were performed on several occasions on the building, including the year 1933, 1960 as well as the first decade of the 21st century (from 2003 onwards).

Description

The building is situated in the Lipce district of Gdańsk, on the eastern side of the Trakt św. Wojciecha road, (which constitutes a section of the national road between Gdańsk and Tczew), directly adjacent to the pavement and the road itself. It is a free-standing structure located on a very small piece of land, its gable wall facing the street.

The building features a post-and-beam structure; initially the house featured wattle-and-daub infills, which were subsequently replaced with bricks and covered with plaster. The rear (eastern) gable is clad with weatherboards.

The building was erected on a rectangular floor plan; it is a two-storey structure with a gable roof above a two-storey garret. A wooden arcade spans across the entire length of the front facade (the western facade, incorporating the gable wall), featuring a total of nine pillars with semi-circular braces giving the individual openings an arcaded shape. In addition, the front facade also features lavishly profiled front sections of the arcade beams and a similarly adorned cornice underneath the gable. All facades of the house feature a simple checkerboard arrangement of posts and beams. Some of the resulting fields between the beams also incorporate braces (northern and eastern facades), while additional diagonal beams are visible in the gables, near the edges of the roof. The facade above the arcade features two window openings and two niches topped with segmental arches. A dual window is positioned in the gable wall. The side facades of the house as well as the rear facade thereof incorporate windows of varying sizes, positioned in an irregular arrangement, their rhythm different on every level of the house. The windows in the ground floor section are wooden casement windows (single or double), the individual sashes being divided by muntins into four, six or nine panels. The first floor features modern, single casement windows with wooden window shutters. The roof incorporates a set of skylights which are a later addition and were not part of the original design. The rear facade shows numerous traces of changes in the arrangement of beams and posts as well as places where the brick parts of the wall were altered as time went by.

The interior layout has been partially modified since the construction of the house.

The building is not accessible to visitors.

Compiled by Beata Dygulska, Regional Branch of the National Heritage Board of Poland in Gdańsk, 08.07.2014.

Bibliography

• Kloeppel O., Die bӓuerlische Haus-, Hof- und Siedlungsanlage im Weiches-Nogat-Delta, Danzig 1924, s. 141-143.
• Gdańsk-Lipce, dom podcieniowy, ul. Jedności Robotniczej 293. Dokumentacja naukowo-historyczna, oprac. Krzyżanowski L., Szymoniak Z., Gdańsk 1957.
• Samp J., Orunia, Stare Szkoty i Lipce, Gdańsk 2005, s. 19-21.
• Słownik Królestwa Polskiego, Warszawa 1884, t. 5, s. 254.
• Stankiewicz J., Zabytki budownictwa na Żuławach, „Rocznik Gdański” 1956/1957, t. 15-16, s. 519-522, 529.
• Żuławskie domy podcieniowe. Dokumentacja historyczna, oprac. L. Krzyżanowski, Gdańsk 1962, t. 1, s. 9.