In the eastern territories of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, post offices and telegraph offices were characteristic buildings. The post office building in Lida in Belarus is still one of the examples of so-called postal functionalism. Its designer was Wanda Boerner-Przewłocka.

Postal buildings of the inter-war years
In the inter-war years, the basic unit of the postal network were postal and telegraph offices, which served customers sending mail and using the telegraph or telephone. A particularly large number of such facilities were built in the 1930s, including in the eastern provinces of the Republic. By 1937, two post office buildings had been constructed in Vilnius, in addition to those in Lutsk, Rivne, Pinsk and Stanislawow; construction of an outpost in Baranovichi had begun; new buildings were planned in Grodno, Druskininkai, Szczuczyn, Horodziej (near Nesvizh), Klecko, Molodeczno and Wlodzimierz Wolynski, among others.

The characteristic cubic, white-plastered buildings with flat roofs and receding ground floors are textbook examples of modernist architecture, designed according to Le Corbusier's guidelines. The building of the Post and Telegraph Office in Lida is also among the examples of this 'postal functionalism' in borderland architecture.

Wanda Boerner-Przewłocka - Polish architect and designer
. Today's residents of Lida claim that the design of the post office was the work of English architects. However, this rather widespread "urban legend" is not confirmed by archival sources. The building was designed in 1936 by Wanda Boerner-Przewłocka, a Warsaw-based architect (a 1929 graduate of the Faculty of Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology). Przewłocka also designed, among other things, the building of the Post and Telegraph Office in Iwonicz and a housing estate for post and telegraph workers in Warsaw - the so-called Liaison Estate, later named Boernerow. She probably received commissions for postal projects thanks to her relevant contacts - her uncle, Ignacy Boerner, served several times as Minister of Posts and Telegraphs between 1929 and 1933.

Wanda Boerner-Przewłocka was a distinguished captain in the Home Army during the Second World War (pseudonym "Grażyna") and participated in the Warsaw Uprising. She was awarded the Cross of Valour (twice) and the Golden Cross of Merit with Swords, and spent the post-war years in exile. She died in London in 1971 (perhaps this is where the Lida legend of English designers comes from).

Construction of the Lida post office building
A plot of land in Mickiewicza Street (still bearing the same name), near the new buildings of the gymnasium and primary school, was allocated for the construction of a post office in the then district town of Novogrudok Province. Construction work began in 1936. By October of the following year, the building was in its shell, and in 1938 it was put into use. The cost of building the post office exceeded half a million zlotys at the time.

The investment provided an opportunity to apply technical innovations to the eastern periphery of the country. Instead of using aboveground telephone cables on poles, the then new technique of underground cables was used (during the laying of the cables, the remains of an Orthodox cemetery from the 18th century were discovered). In April 1938, five postal cars were purchased, thus limiting the use of the then horse-drawn rolling stock to areas inaccessible by car. Along with the construction of the post office, Mickiewicz Street was also modernised: it was the first in Lida to be covered with asphalt.

Architecture of the Lida post office building
Architecturally, the post office building is an arrangement of white, cubic volumes with elements typical of the Corbusier style, including a slightly set-back ground floor zone, exposing the structural columns, and emphasised with darker cladding.

The building has also been deliberately planned in terms of its function. In the broadly established ground floor zone was the letter and cash room, designed as the functional core of the whole, with a telegraph and telephonic and deposition room to the side (separate entrances from a common vestibule). Around the letter-cash room, the internal service rooms were arranged: the dispatch office with warehouse and postmen's room, the rooms related to monetary transactions (cash desk with treasury and money postmen's room) and the office of the chief clerk with secretariat. Two separate entrances were provided for the office staff (including customer service staff) at the side and rear of the building, with a corridor encircling the letter-cash room. This not only enabled workstations to be occupied without the need for the main customer entrance, but also allowed the postmaster to have unobstructed access to all departments. The upper floors of the building were planned to house offices, telegraph equipment and a telephone exchange, while the side wing was used for flats.

Once the new post office was operational, the postal authorities updated the mail delivery system. The city was divided into ten districts, and mail within Lida was delivered twice a day. The time of mail delivery was synchronised with the arrival of Warsaw-Vilnius trains, so Lida residents could read the Warsaw press as early as nine o'clock in the morning.

Today Lida is the second largest city in the Vilnius region. However, the post office building is in good condition, has not undergone any major transformations in terms of interior layout and still serves as a post office. During the Soviet era, a decorative mosaic in the "social-modern" convention was installed in the operating room.