Manor houses of Polish-Lithuanian nobility

A manor house of Polish-Lithuanian nobility is called dwór[1] or dworek in Polish and dvaras in Lithuanian.

The architectural form of the manor house evolved around the late Polish Renaissance period and continued until the Second World War, which, together with the communist takeover of Poland and Soviet occupation of Lithuania, spelled the end of the nobility in both nations.

[4][5] They tended to fall into two types: rare palaces of the magnates, and smaller, one-story houses, in which wood was the most common building material.

[5] Starting with the Renaissance period, mansions built with masonwork appeared, often designed to enhance their defensive characteristics.

Walls were often painted with floral or moral and historical motifs, and decorated with Oriental (Persian, Turkish) or West European (Belgian, Flemish, French) tapestries and rugs, coats of arms, portraits, mirrors, weapons and trophies.

[6][7] Over time, Polish manors adopted a palace-villa form with Baroque and Palladian style elements.

[8] The first Polish architectural treatise, from around the mid-17 century, included instructions for building early modern manors.

[9][a] Manors were constructed across Poland not only in rural areas but also in cities, particularly in Warsaw, where they remained the most popular type of residence from the 17-18th centuries until the 1830s.

[13] In Poland, the ideologically driven nationalization policies and architectural preservation guidelines enacted during the early years of the Polish People's Republic contributed to the destruction of many manors houses.

[16] It gained particular traction in the 19th century during the period of Romanticism,[17] leading to the creation of the dworek style (Polish: styl narodowy or styl dworkowy) — an urban or suburban villa from the first half of the 20th century, in which public utility buildings, such as railway stations, were also designed in Poland.