[1][2][3] He was born 20 February 1877 in Totma, in Russia, where his father Antoni, veteran of the January Uprising of 1863, served as a forest superintendent.

[5] He graduated in 1897[6] and then two of the most prestigious art and architecture universities of the epoch: the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the Higher Technical School in Vienna.

In July 1908 he stayed at Paderewski's residence in Morges, Switzerland, where the idea of creating a monument commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Battle of Grunwald was born.

[7] Among the most notable of his works are: The Holy Heart of Jesus' Church was started in 1913 and was the first monumental building created with usage of reinforced concrete in the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

In 1919, despite suffering from tuberculosis, he volunteered for the Polish militia (Self-Defence of Lithuania and Belarus) and took part in the defence of Vilnius against Bolshevik assault in the early stages of the Polish-Bolshevik War campaigns.