Modlnica Manor House

For twelve years the ethnographer Oskar Kolberg lived in the white Konopka family manor in Modlnica, just outside Kraków, working on further volumes of his monumental "Lud" ("The People"). Today the classicist residence, with its columned porch and tall mansard roof, belongs to the Jagiellonian University, which completed a thorough restoration in 2020. It is not a museum, but its story is worth knowing as you pass through Modlnica.

History: from the Salomon estate to the Konopka residence

The earliest known record of a manor here comes from an inventory of 1582, when the estate belonged to Mikołaj Salomon. The present building went up in 1784–1787 on the initiative of Józef Konopka of the Nowina coat of arms; it was designed and built by the Kraków architect Karol Kriszker. It was a single-storey brick manor on a rectangular plan, soon enlarged with a third range on the north side and a courtyard enclosed by a stone wall with a tower.

The manor owes its typical classicist look to a remodelling in the 1820s. The front gained a four-column porch and a high mansard roof, and the garden side a recessed six-column portico. The windows were crowned with triangular stucco pediments.

Kolberg and the artists

In the late 19th century the manor was one of the favourite meeting places of Kraków's artistic elite. The Konopkas hosted, among others, Artur Grottger, Walery Eljasz-Radzikowski and Włodzimierz Tetmajer. The guest who stayed longest was Oskar Kolberg: after leaving Warsaw in 1871 he first lived in Mogilany with Józef Konopka, and from 1872 to 1884 with his siblings, Antonina and Julian Konopka, in Modlnica. In autumn 1884 he moved to Kraków.

Decline and revival

After Adam Konopka died in 1931 the manor began to decline, and after the Second World War it was nationalised and fell into ruin. Rebuilt in the 1960s, it was handed to the Jagiellonian University as a gift for the university's 600th anniversary. The restoration, costing almost PLN 6 million, covered the façades and window joinery, the shingle roof, the courtyard fountain and the interiors. Furniture, paintings, prints, chandeliers and hunting trophies were restored as well.

What to see

• The façade with its four-column porch and mansard roof.
• The park descending westwards in four terraces, laid out as early as the 16th century; its main asset is the partly preserved stand of centuries-old trees.
• Inside, three original fireplaces and a collection of hunting trophies and 18th-century hunting prints donated by Adam Konopka, the last owner.

Tripto tip

The manor operates as the Jagiellonian University Rector's Conference and Reception Centre, with rooms for about 40 people, catering and accommodation. There are no regular opening hours or tickets and the grounds are fenced, so you will only see the interiors during an event or a stay. From outside, 10–15 minutes is enough. Combine Modlnica with the nearby 16th-century wooden Church of St Adalbert, whose belfry holds bells cast in 1492 and 1542.