History

In the past, the village of Morawica belonged to Tenczyn County. Already at the end of the 18th century, there was a manor house here occupied by the estate manager. In the 19th century, the property was owned by the Potocki family from Krzeszowice. In the 1930s, a new manor house was built near the former residential building (slightly to the south of it); it also served the manager. The last manager residing there was Jan Zarazik. In the spring of 1939, Andrzej Jaworowski, of the Lubicz coat of arms, and his wife Maria purchased the Morawica estate from the Potockis. After the 1944 land reform, they lost their property.

It was parcelled out among the manor workers and the village people. Originally, the palace accommodated several families. In later years, it housed an agricultural school. Also, the commune administration office used it. After its liquidation, the palace was used by a school and had one apartment.

The school facility was named after Cpt. Mieczysław Medwecki, a Polish pilot who died on 1 September 1939 near Morawica. The ceremony was held on 10 October 1980.

Description

The manor house sits in the east part of the village, on the south-east slope of a gently rising hill; on its top, there is a church and parish complex. The house faces south-east; it stands in 2/3 of the length of a longitudinal plot. It is a single-storey building with a basement and a habitable attic. The school grounds are fenced with a mesh on steel posts. Within the fence, there is also a building called “little stable” (in the north corner of the plot) and a new school building (in the south-east section of the site).

The manor house is a detached villa in the so-called “Polish mansion style.” It was built on a rectangular plan similar to a square, with a small avant-corps in the north-east corner of the rear façade.

The front façade has five axes, three of which are clearly separated and featuring a portico and a mansard room topped with a triangular pediment. A four-column recessed portico is set on the plan of a flattened segmental arch. Above it, there is a terrace with a decorative concrete railing. The regular pattern of the façade is disturbed by a deep recess in the east axis. The rear façade is irregular. Its east part is occupied by a two-axis avant-corps with a semicircular window in the gable part. It is enclosed in a carpentry decoration reminding of health resort architecture. The gable is separated by a dotted cornice. The decorative elements of the façade are varied, framed window openings with prominent lintels with the eyebrow motif. A similar motif is repeated in the crown cornice. The picturesque character of the body is emphasised by the system of roof planes. The building has a hipped roof created by joining a hipped roof over the main body with a half-hipped roof covering the avant-corps. The mansard and the dormer of the rear façade have separate canopies.

The interior of the building is not accessible for visitors. It houses a school (pre-school section). The structure is open from the outside.

Author of the note Grzegorz Młynarczyk, Regional Branch of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage in Kraków 07/2015

Bibliography

• A.Siwek, Karta ewidencyjna zabytku, Kraków 1992
• I.Kaczyńska, zamki w Polsce południowej, Warszawa:” Sport i Turystyka” pp. 136-143