Villa Oksza — 20th-Century Art Gallery

Villa Oksza (Willa Oksza) is one of the most beautiful landmarks of Zakopane and also a branch of the Tatra Museum housing the 20th-Century Art Gallery. The house was designed by Stanisław Witkiewicz, the creator of the Zakopane style, and it is already his third villa in this style. The design was drawn up in 1894–1895 for Bronisława and Wincenty Korwin-Kossakowski. The villa was built by highland carpenters led by Wojciech Roj and Jan Obrochta: work began in spring 1895 and was completed in June 1896, and the furniture was made by Kazimierz Sieczka.

In 1899 the villa was bought by Count Marcin Kęszycki, who named it Oksza — it was a gift for his silver wedding anniversary with his wife Helena. An inscription carved into the main ceiling beam (sosręb) of a ground-floor room still commemorates the anniversary. The owner, however, died less than a year after the celebration, and his widow probably lived in Oksza until the outbreak of the First World War. Later the house had many roles: from 1920 a health home for schoolchildren run by the Odrodzenie society, during the Second World War a housekeeping school moved here from Kuźnice, after the war a children's preventorium, and from 1965 a holiday home. In 2006 the villa was handed over to the Tatra Museum; in 2008–2010 it was restored and adapted as a gallery, and on 15 May 2011 its first exhibition opened: "Zakopane – the Navel of the World. Art under Giewont 1880–1939".

What to see

• The architecture itself: an almost symmetrical log house on a stone base, a great carved entrance door, a porch on a stone arch with side spiral stairs of sandstone, covered galleries along the east wall and a passage to the two-storey annexe. Witkiewicz himself wrote that Oksza was the simplest of the new Zakopane houses, as it used motifs already tried out elsewhere.
• Carved beams and ceilings with rosettes and the date of construction — classic details of the Zakopane style.
• Exhibitions of 20th-century art: the gallery mainly shows artists connected with Zakopane and Podhale. As of 2026 the permanent exhibition is temporarily unavailable and the villa hosts temporary exhibitions — check the current one on the museum website.

Practical information

Oksza stands on Zamoyskiego Street, about a kilometre from Krupówki and close to the road to the Wielka Krokiew ski jump, so it is a comfortable 15-minute walk from the centre. There is a car park for visitors. The gallery is open all year and closed on Mondays; since only a temporary exhibition is currently open, there is no free Thursday here, but the weekly ticket to all Tatra Museum branches is valid. Allow 40–60 minutes for the visit, plus a few minutes to look at the façades in the garden. The house is historic, wooden and has stairs; the museum publishes information for visitors with disabilities on a separate page, so it is best to phone ahead.

Nearby: trails and peaks

300 m from the villa runs our trail Antałówka – Gubałówka, upper funicular station, and less than a kilometre away is the Droga pod Reglami, a forest path along the foot of the Tatras from which routes lead into the valleys. You can easily continue to the Wielka Krokiew Ski Jump or up Nosal. To see where Witkiewicz's style began, visit Villa Koliba — Museum of Zakopane Style, and for more modern art, the Władysław Hasior Gallery.

Official website: muzeumtatrzanskie.pl

Photos: mik Krakow, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons; Deszcze, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons; Panoramer360, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons; Piotrekwas, CC BY-SA 3.0 pl, Wikimedia Commons; User:Piotrus, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons; Andrzej Otrębski, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.