Modelowe zagrody chłopskie w aktach Rządu Gubernialnego Lubelskiego z 1907 roku

In the State Archives in Lublin, there is an extensive fonds of Lublin Province Government which is a valuable source for research into the history of Lublin region – including the history of architecture and construction. In the fonds, there is a very limited group of files regarding rural architecture, particularly including construction plans. The files include a very interesting group of documents of 1907 which contain model examples of farms and rural buildings, drawn for ten poviats of Lublin Province (Biłgoraj, Chełm, Hrubieszów, Janów, Krasnystaw, Lubartów, Lublin, Nowy Aleksandrów (now Puławy Poviat), Tomaszów and Zamość). The drawings were made upon the request of Technical and Construction Committee of the Ministry of the Interior addressed to all provincial governments and, then, particular Poviat engineers and architects. It was explained in the official correspondence that the intention of the legislator was to take a closer look at local construction traditions in order to consider them in new construction regulations. Rural buildings of each Poviat were illustrated with one, the most representative example of a farm. The illustrative material was selected on the basis of uniform principles and supplemented with comments on materials applied and construction techniques, with a focus on the construction of heating devices. According to the principle adopted, the drawings had to accurately reflect the reality and present all violations of the provisions of the Construction Act - however, the information (as it was stressed) was not collected for the purposes of technical and police supervision, but it was intended for the use as object construction and ethnographic materials. The archival material presented shall be regarded as valuable documents of the era and important source for research into rural buildings of Lublin region.