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Kadenówka's Early Days

Villa Kadenówka was designed around the year 1930 by Adam Kaden (writer, poet, amateur painter) for his brother Kazimierz – the co-founder of the Rabka-Zdrój health resort. In the years of its prosperity, Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz and his family were frequent guests of Kadenówka. Members of the Cricot Theater, Karol Szymanowski, Jalu Kurek and Zofia Rydet also visited the willa. In later years, the building changed its owners a couple of times, slowly falling into oblivion. In the 1970s, the villa passed into the hands of the pulmonary department of the hospital in Rabka-Zdrój, and was used as a housing for the hospital's employees.

In 2014, the artist Paulina Ołowska took over the care of the house. Since then, artists, creators and people of culture have come to the villa to work and undertake various activities. The villa serves as a stage and theatrical scenery, it is a place for meetings, lectures and discussions during artistic plein-airs or performances. Since 2019, the villa is the headquarters of the Artist House Kadenówka Foundation.

Kadenówka represents a mixture of architectural styles popular before the First World War. The shape of the building recalls the Zakopane style and modernizm, bearing elements of the Hutsul style. The building is three-story high, with a stone foundation and a shingled, gable roof. The dominant element of the interior, and at the same time determining the character of the villa, is an open hall with a breakthrough to the first floor, where it is surrounded by a wooden, bright gallery. The villa is one of the few preserved examples of representational regional wooden architecture in southern Małopolska.

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