In the mid-1920s, a housing estate for government officials was built in Novogrudok. The architecture of the so-called officials' colony is a textbook example of the application of the so-called manor style.

Officials' colonies

After 1924, the Ministry of Public Works undertook a wide-ranging campaign in the so-called Eastern Borderlands to build housing colonies for Polish civil servants (so-called official colonies). This was the first important impulse for urban transformation in this area after the First World War. The construction of such settlements was undertaken in dozens of borderland towns, and the most prominent architects were involved in the design work. In terms of urban design, the colonies were based on the garden city concept popular in the 1920s, developed in 1898 by the British planner Ebenezer Howard. These were generally symmetrical assumptions in separate city zones, consisting of loosely built residential houses surrounded by greenery and connected by narrow streets and alleys. Facilities such as playgrounds, playing fields and clerical casinos were also included in the design.

The colonies formed a coherent whole both aesthetically and functionally. As a Poznan engineer wrote in a letter to his daughter: "the action, carried out with great panache, has produced lasting effects and a fashion even for such building of multi-family houses on a common estate in the midst of greenery. This concept is called a garden city and is also used in Europe. The intention in Warsaw was to indicate and mark elements of Polishness and native forms in the construction of buildings. The houses are quite modern, bright, functional, and the estates are well laid out" (Piotr J. Jamski, Pocztówki z Kresów przedwojennej Polski, Poznań 2012).

Designer of the colony in Nowogródek

Wilhelm Karol Henneberg (1891-1963), whose father, Wilhelm Edward, a polonised German, was active in the Land Loan Society and the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts, acted as construction manager of the Novogrudok colony while a fresh graduate of the Warsaw Polytechnic. During the First World War, he belonged to the Polish Military Organisation (POW) and served in the Polish Army. In the 1920s he designed in a traditional style, later devoting himself to functionalist experiments. Among other things, he was the author of the design for the so-called new palace in Sucha Szlachecka, the common school in Warsaw at Kolektorska Street and the unrealised concept for an airport in Warsaw's Gocław. In addition, he was active in the conservation of historical monuments (he worked at the Central Office for the Inventory of Art Monuments at the Art Department of the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Public Enlightenment). In addition to the clerical colony in Novogrudok, Wilhelm Karol Henneberg directed the construction of settlements in Slonim and Volozhin.

Construction of the Novogrudok clerical colony

Wooden one- and two-family houses stood in the southern part of the town, close to the new public buildings - the narrow-gauge railway station, the tax chamber and the provincial office. The architecture of the Novogrudok colony is one of the most textbook examples of the application of the pattern of the Polish noble manor house, which had already become one of the most important sources of national style by the beginning of the 20th century. The most famous events associated with the concept of the 'manor style' were the architectural competitions for the design of Zygmunt Krasiński's family manor in Opinogóra (1908) and the Włodek family manor in Niegowici (1913), and the Cracow Exhibition of Architecture and Interiors in the Garden Surroundings (1912).

The classicising, single-storey building, covered with a broken roof and with a column portico in the façade, was an important element of the neo-romantic vision of the former noble Republic. At the same time, the simple, clear form and the possibility of using it in the current urban concepts of the garden city made this model seem like an almost ideal combination of tradition and modernity, especially in terms of residential architecture. It was thus accepted by both the conservative landed gentry and other, more progressive social groups. In the 1920s, the traditionalist trend of classicist provenience, or to put it simply, the manor house style, enjoyed great popularity. In addition to dozens and hundreds of public buildings, schools, military edifices, post offices and railway stations, it found widespread use in the architecture of housing estates for government officials that were realised in the Borderlands. In this way, thanks to the association of Polish officials with the Borderland gentry, Polishness and Polish statehood were built in the eastern borderlands.

Types of houses in the officials' colony

Different types of dwellings were planned in the buildings, from one- to three-roomed, depending on the official hierarchy of the occupants. The original concept for the Novogrudok colony envisaged the construction of fourteen structures, including ten larger ones (type H - two three-room flats with kitchens and six studios) and four smaller ones (type II G - one three-room flat with kitchen and two studios). Type H was designed by Georg Müller (also used in Volozhin, Baranovichi and Stolptsy), type II G by Wilhelm K. Henneberg. Both types used wooden construction because, as it was written: "this was supported both by considerations of speed of construction and the immediate usability of wooden houses". In the end, however, it was not possible to realise the concept in its entirety, stopping at the erection of four Type II G and three Type H houses.

Most of the buildings that make up the colony (three Type II G and two Type H houses) have survived to this day, although their condition leaves much to be desired (among other things, the roofing has been replaced with asbestos boards). The buildings still serve a residential function.