Cultural Identity in the Recreational Architecture of the Beskid Mountains

Intensive development of recreational construction has taken place in the Beskid Mountains in Southern Poland over the span of several decades, especially in the villages of Szczyrk, Wisła, and Brenna, due to the proximity of the industrial Silesian agglomeration. These buildings, constructed mostly since the 1970s, are heterogeneous in appearance and often do not reference traditional timber-and-stone sustainable architecture; instead, they replicate the esthetics found in contemporary single-family houses throughout Poland or abroad. Inconsistencies in building regulations have reinforced this approach, leading to a decline in the quality of both architecture and landscape. Although this situation has been widely discussed in public media, publications on this topic remain sporadic. This article therefore applies qualitative research to discuss the role of cultural identity in modern recreational architecture in the Beskid Mountains as it has affected the well-being of the citizens of Silesia since the 1930s. The unique contribution of this paper to Polish architectural and heritage research is threefold: it provides a structured framework for understanding the development of recreational architecture as a process, it explicitly links empirical field observations to theoretical frameworks (Frampton, Norberg-Schulz, Rapoport), and it proposes a general pathway for culturally sustainable design in the region.