WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.319 Okay, let's get into this. I want you to picture 00:00:02.319 --> 00:00:05.440 a survivor. But I'm not talking about a person. 00:00:05.620 --> 00:00:08.660 I'm talking about a building. And not, you know, 00:00:08.740 --> 00:00:12.820 some stone fortress or a concrete bunker. Which 00:00:12.820 --> 00:00:15.080 you might expect, given the history of the region 00:00:15.080 --> 00:00:16.699 we're talking about. Exactly. I'm talking about 00:00:16.699 --> 00:00:19.300 a wooden house. Which, in the context of 20th 00:00:19.300 --> 00:00:21.879 century European history, is a very fragile thing 00:00:21.879 --> 00:00:24.239 to be. Incredibly fragile. We are heading into 00:00:24.239 --> 00:00:27.359 the forests of Poland today, to a place called 00:00:27.359 --> 00:00:31.109 Podkoa Luszna. And standing there is a structure 00:00:31.109 --> 00:00:34.609 that has seen, well, basically the entire turbulent 00:00:34.609 --> 00:00:36.829 arc of the last hundred plus years. It's seen 00:00:36.829 --> 00:00:39.649 everything. The end of empires, huge literary 00:00:39.649 --> 00:00:43.070 movements, two world wars. Total abandonment 00:00:43.070 --> 00:00:45.549 and then somehow a resurrection. It's a remarkable 00:00:45.549 --> 00:00:47.729 case study. We usually look at history through, 00:00:47.810 --> 00:00:50.969 you know, dates and battles. But looking at it 00:00:50.969 --> 00:00:54.350 through the lens of a single address. 7 Jarsua 00:00:54.350 --> 00:00:56.630 Iwaskiewicz Street. It just gives you a completely 00:00:56.630 --> 00:00:59.270 different texture of the past. I love that. A 00:00:59.270 --> 00:01:02.409 specific address grounds it all. So today we're 00:01:02.409 --> 00:01:04.689 doing a deep dive into Villa Ida. We've got a 00:01:04.689 --> 00:01:07.090 stack of historical records, architectural notes, 00:01:07.250 --> 00:01:10.150 cultural biographies, all to figure out how this 00:01:10.150 --> 00:01:13.609 one house went from an industrialist summer home 00:01:13.609 --> 00:01:16.629 to a hub for famous poets, then fell into complete 00:01:16.629 --> 00:01:19.670 ruin and somehow came back to life as a center 00:01:19.670 --> 00:01:22.469 for art. And the mission here really is to get 00:01:22.469 --> 00:01:25.450 at the soul of a building. What's so fascinating 00:01:25.450 --> 00:01:28.769 about Villa Ida is its cyclical nature. You'll 00:01:28.769 --> 00:01:31.109 notice, no matter what history throws at it, 00:01:31.170 --> 00:01:33.629 and it throws a lot, the house always seems to 00:01:33.629 --> 00:01:35.930 find its way back to art. It's like the wood 00:01:35.930 --> 00:01:39.090 itself has a muscle memory for creativity. But 00:01:39.090 --> 00:01:41.049 before we get to the poetry in the ruin, we have 00:01:41.049 --> 00:01:42.670 to lay the foundation. We have to go back to 00:01:42.670 --> 00:01:45.170 the beginning. Right. It was built circa 1900. 00:01:45.980 --> 00:01:48.239 So right at that transition from the 19th to 00:01:48.239 --> 00:01:51.439 the 20th century. A time of immense optimism 00:01:51.439 --> 00:01:53.140 in that part of the world. And it was built by 00:01:53.140 --> 00:01:56.200 a man named Stanislaw Wilhelm Lilpop. Now that 00:01:56.200 --> 00:01:59.140 name, Lilpop, it carries some serious weight 00:01:59.140 --> 00:02:01.780 in that region's history. It does. The Lilpops 00:02:01.780 --> 00:02:04.280 were huge players in the industrial development 00:02:04.280 --> 00:02:07.859 of Warsaw. So when Stanislaw Wilhelm Lilpop builds 00:02:07.859 --> 00:02:10.080 this villa, he's not just, you know, putting 00:02:10.080 --> 00:02:12.080 up a shack in the woods. He's making a statement. 00:02:12.259 --> 00:02:15.740 A big one. About leisure, about nature, a certain 00:02:15.740 --> 00:02:19.020 kind of lifestyle. But the material choice is 00:02:19.020 --> 00:02:22.300 what really struck me. Wood. In a region that 00:02:22.300 --> 00:02:24.219 was about to become a corridor for two of the 00:02:24.219 --> 00:02:27.539 most destructive wars in history. Building in 00:02:27.539 --> 00:02:31.840 wood feels almost, I don't know, naive. Or at 00:02:31.840 --> 00:02:34.060 least incredibly vulnerable. And it is honorable. 00:02:34.199 --> 00:02:37.099 Wood is susceptible to everything. Fire, shelling, 00:02:37.199 --> 00:02:39.379 rot, damp. So the fact that it's still standing 00:02:39.379 --> 00:02:42.810 in Paco Alucia is... What, a statistical anomaly? 00:02:43.150 --> 00:02:45.229 It really is. Most of its wooden contemporaries 00:02:45.229 --> 00:02:47.530 are long gone. But you have to remember the context 00:02:47.530 --> 00:02:50.530 of Podcoalition itself. It was designed as a 00:02:50.530 --> 00:02:53.289 garden city. The architecture was meant to blend 00:02:53.289 --> 00:02:56.069 with the forest. Undominated. Exactly. So it 00:02:56.069 --> 00:02:58.509 starts as this idyllic retreat. But the story 00:02:58.509 --> 00:03:00.189 moves on to the next generation, and this is 00:03:00.189 --> 00:03:02.530 where the house really gets its character. Ownership 00:03:02.530 --> 00:03:04.909 passes to Anna Ivoskevich. Who was born Anna 00:03:04.909 --> 00:03:08.750 Lilpop. Right. And her husband, Yaroslav Ivoskevich. 00:03:09.110 --> 00:03:11.370 Now. I spent some time on him because he's a 00:03:11.370 --> 00:03:14.969 key figure here. To just call him a writer feels 00:03:14.969 --> 00:03:17.050 like a huge understatement. Oh, he's monumental, 00:03:17.409 --> 00:03:20.550 a titan in Polish literature. And his presence 00:03:20.550 --> 00:03:23.349 at Villa Ida completely changes the building's 00:03:23.349 --> 00:03:25.889 function. How so? It stops being just a quiet 00:03:25.889 --> 00:03:29.069 summer home for a rich family, and it turns into 00:03:29.069 --> 00:03:31.530 a kind of cultural gravity well. When you have 00:03:31.530 --> 00:03:33.569 a figure like a Voskiewicz living there, people 00:03:33.569 --> 00:03:36.599 come to him. And that pull brings us to the Scamander 00:03:36.599 --> 00:03:37.939 group. This is the part of the research that 00:03:37.939 --> 00:03:40.620 I just I love this part. The villa became a meeting 00:03:40.620 --> 00:03:43.840 place for these poets. And from what I gathered, 00:03:43.939 --> 00:03:46.020 Skamander wasn't your grandfather's poetry club. 00:03:46.080 --> 00:03:48.280 No, not at all. And this is crucial context. 00:03:48.539 --> 00:03:50.819 The Skamander poets were the absolute rebels 00:03:50.819 --> 00:03:53.620 of their time. Before them, Polish poetry was, 00:03:53.659 --> 00:03:56.800 well, it was very heavy. Burden with patriotic 00:03:56.800 --> 00:03:59.719 duty, national mourning, all about maintaining 00:03:59.719 --> 00:04:02.159 the Polish spirit while the country was partitioned. 00:04:02.159 --> 00:04:05.039 It was very serious, somber stuff. And Skamander 00:04:05.039 --> 00:04:07.719 just flipped the table. They smashed the table 00:04:07.719 --> 00:04:10.400 they wanted to write about right now. about biology, 00:04:10.639 --> 00:04:14.960 city streets, crowds, just ordinary life using 00:04:14.960 --> 00:04:17.120 everyday language. So you have this traditional 00:04:17.120 --> 00:04:21.180 wooden villa in a forest. But inside, the conversation 00:04:21.180 --> 00:04:25.459 is radical. It's young, it's loud, and it's completely 00:04:25.459 --> 00:04:28.300 breaking with tradition. I love that contrast. 00:04:28.579 --> 00:04:31.019 And the records say it wasn't just a closed club 00:04:31.019 --> 00:04:33.980 either. It was a meeting place for the whole 00:04:33.980 --> 00:04:36.939 artistic community, an open house for ideas. 00:04:37.600 --> 00:04:40.519 A true salon, really. But we have to be careful 00:04:40.519 --> 00:04:43.959 not to just romanticize it as this peaceful utopia. 00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:45.779 Because this is all happening against a very 00:04:45.779 --> 00:04:48.339 unstable backdrop. Right. World War I enters 00:04:48.339 --> 00:04:50.259 the chat. And the source material says the villa 00:04:50.259 --> 00:04:52.740 was partially destroyed. It took a direct hit. 00:04:52.779 --> 00:04:54.139 This is what we were saying about the vulnerability 00:04:54.139 --> 00:04:56.579 of wood. It doesn't take much to just wipe it 00:04:56.579 --> 00:04:58.939 off the map. And yet the Ayahuasca family didn't 00:04:58.939 --> 00:05:01.660 just pack up and leave, which is... It's a testament 00:05:01.660 --> 00:05:04.139 to their attachment to the place. Most people, 00:05:04.259 --> 00:05:06.459 if their country house gets partially blown up, 00:05:06.519 --> 00:05:09.480 they'd probably stay in the city. But they stayed. 00:05:09.579 --> 00:05:11.579 They patched it up. They kept the lights on. 00:05:11.759 --> 00:05:14.680 And that decision is so important. It meant the 00:05:14.680 --> 00:05:18.379 art, the conversations could continue. But then 00:05:18.379 --> 00:05:21.000 we move into the 1930s and the story shifts again. 00:05:21.199 --> 00:05:24.139 The Bohemian Hub era comes to an end. And we 00:05:24.139 --> 00:05:26.480 enter what you called the guest house era. Yeah. 00:05:26.540 --> 00:05:29.060 This is a major pivot. The villa changes ownership. 00:05:29.439 --> 00:05:32.000 And more importantly, its function changes. It's 00:05:32.000 --> 00:05:34.939 not a private home or a literary salon anymore. 00:05:35.259 --> 00:05:38.379 It becomes a commercial guest house. In reading 00:05:38.379 --> 00:05:41.560 between the lines here, the whole vibe just tanks. 00:05:41.959 --> 00:05:45.360 The records say guests would stay for a few hours 00:05:45.360 --> 00:05:47.339 or a few days. Now, a few days sounds like a 00:05:47.339 --> 00:05:49.860 little vacation. A few hours, that suggests something 00:05:49.860 --> 00:05:52.459 else. It suggests transience. Yeah. Utility. 00:05:52.920 --> 00:05:54.980 Nothing more. It feels like the building lost 00:05:54.980 --> 00:05:57.800 its dignity. You go from having the greatest 00:05:57.800 --> 00:06:00.100 literary minds of a generation arguing about 00:06:00.100 --> 00:06:02.100 poetry in the living room. To anonymous travelers 00:06:02.100 --> 00:06:03.899 checking in for a nap and then just leaving. 00:06:04.120 --> 00:06:06.300 It's the difference between dwelling in a space 00:06:06.300 --> 00:06:08.600 and just occupying it. That's a great way to 00:06:08.600 --> 00:06:11.079 put it. In the Scamander era, the house was a 00:06:11.079 --> 00:06:13.600 participant. It held their memories. In the guesthouse 00:06:13.600 --> 00:06:16.579 era, it's just a backdrop, a commodity. A purely 00:06:16.579 --> 00:06:20.180 utilitarian space. And honestly, this feels like 00:06:20.180 --> 00:06:21.660 the first step toward the edge of the cliff. 00:06:22.040 --> 00:06:25.220 Because what comes next isn't a recovery. It's 00:06:25.220 --> 00:06:28.459 the crash. The dark ages of Villeita, the post 00:06:28.459 --> 00:06:30.759 -World War II period. This part of the story 00:06:30.759 --> 00:06:34.120 is. It's just sad to read. After World War II, 00:06:34.259 --> 00:06:37.040 the ownership situation becomes chaotic. The 00:06:37.040 --> 00:06:39.079 records say it changed hands multiple times. 00:06:39.529 --> 00:06:41.850 Which is a very polite way of saying no one wanted 00:06:41.850 --> 00:06:43.829 the responsibility for it. Right. I mean, in 00:06:43.829 --> 00:06:46.389 post -war Poland, maintaining a big old wooden 00:06:46.389 --> 00:06:48.750 villa, that was a huge burden. Resources were 00:06:48.750 --> 00:06:51.829 gone. People were just trying to survive. A poetic 00:06:51.829 --> 00:06:55.230 summer home from 1900 was not a priority. And 00:06:55.230 --> 00:06:57.310 with that instability comes the physical decay. 00:06:58.089 --> 00:07:01.350 The text says it gradually fell into abandonment. 00:07:01.430 --> 00:07:03.250 And you have to imagine what that means for a 00:07:03.250 --> 00:07:06.069 wooden house in a forest. No heat, no paint, 00:07:06.250 --> 00:07:08.470 no one fighting back the damp. It's a death sentence. 00:07:08.670 --> 00:07:10.610 The wood just wants to return to the earth. We 00:07:10.610 --> 00:07:13.009 came so close to losing Villa Ida completely 00:07:13.009 --> 00:07:16.189 then. It was a ghost of itself, just rotting 00:07:16.189 --> 00:07:18.329 away. It's the classic narrative valley. You 00:07:18.329 --> 00:07:20.410 go from the high of the Scamander poets to the 00:07:20.410 --> 00:07:23.069 absolute low of this rotting, forgotten shell. 00:07:23.529 --> 00:07:25.540 But... And this is where we're talking about 00:07:25.540 --> 00:07:28.959 it today. The story didn't end there. The house 00:07:28.959 --> 00:07:32.000 attracts saviors. It seems to. Enter the Cloteau 00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:35.000 family. The turning point. They acquire the villa, 00:07:35.139 --> 00:07:38.240 and they don't just bulldoze it to build something 00:07:38.240 --> 00:07:40.319 new, which probably would have made more financial 00:07:40.319 --> 00:07:42.779 sense. They decide to save it. They start a partial 00:07:42.779 --> 00:07:45.240 renovation. And renovation here isn't just fixing 00:07:45.240 --> 00:07:48.019 a leaky roof. It's an act of cultural rescue. 00:07:48.339 --> 00:07:50.860 And there's a specific name mentioned who drives 00:07:50.860 --> 00:07:55.850 this new era. Wissawaklakaf. Under her, the villa 00:07:55.850 --> 00:07:58.410 doesn't just get repaired physically. It gets 00:07:58.410 --> 00:08:00.550 a whole new mission. It does. It doesn't go back 00:08:00.550 --> 00:08:02.810 to being a private home. Yeah. And it definitely 00:08:02.810 --> 00:08:04.769 doesn't go back to being a guest house. It goes 00:08:04.769 --> 00:08:07.170 back to its roots. It becomes the headquarters 00:08:07.170 --> 00:08:09.709 of the Alternative Foundation. Yeah. And I look 00:08:09.709 --> 00:08:11.550 into what they did there. It was theater workshops 00:08:11.550 --> 00:08:15.319 and educational activities for kids. But the 00:08:15.319 --> 00:08:17.959 methodology was what stood out. They used the 00:08:17.959 --> 00:08:20.759 lens of art and artistic games. That phrase, 00:08:20.860 --> 00:08:23.600 artistic games, it's so resonant. It connects 00:08:23.600 --> 00:08:26.000 right back to Scamander, doesn't it? It absolutely 00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:28.959 does. What were the Scamander poets doing? They 00:08:28.959 --> 00:08:31.459 were playing games with language. They were experimenting, 00:08:31.699 --> 00:08:34.120 role -playing. It's a very high -level intellectual 00:08:34.120 --> 00:08:38.360 game. And now, decades later, in the exact same 00:08:38.360 --> 00:08:41.139 rooms where they play their word games. You have 00:08:41.139 --> 00:08:44.080 children playing theater games. Wow. Now, the 00:08:44.080 --> 00:08:46.019 level of sophistication is different, of course. 00:08:46.080 --> 00:08:48.940 A seven -year -old in a drama class isn't Jaroslaw 00:08:48.940 --> 00:08:52.740 Wyskiewicz. But the fundamental human activity, 00:08:52.960 --> 00:08:57.240 it's identical. Imagination. Performance. Using 00:08:57.240 --> 00:08:59.740 the space to create something new. Precisely. 00:08:59.740 --> 00:09:02.059 It feels like the house was waiting for that 00:09:02.059 --> 00:09:05.230 specific kind of energy to come back. The Cloteau 00:09:05.230 --> 00:09:07.769 family didn't just fix the timber, they rebooted 00:09:07.769 --> 00:09:09.750 the soul of the place. That's a great way to 00:09:09.750 --> 00:09:11.669 put it. They rebooted the operating system. They 00:09:11.669 --> 00:09:13.830 understood that the value of Villa Ida wasn't 00:09:13.830 --> 00:09:16.509 just in its beams, but in its capacity to house 00:09:16.509 --> 00:09:19.029 creativity. And that momentum carries it right 00:09:19.029 --> 00:09:22.190 into the modern era. Because in 2010, it gets 00:09:22.190 --> 00:09:24.610 official recognition. It's listed as a historical 00:09:24.610 --> 00:09:26.970 monument. Which gives it the legal armor it needs. 00:09:27.129 --> 00:09:29.590 That means it can't just be torn down on a whim. 00:09:29.850 --> 00:09:32.250 It's recognized as part of the national identity. 00:09:32.590 --> 00:09:35.960 And then just a year later... In 2011, it levels 00:09:35.960 --> 00:09:38.379 up again. It becomes the home of a local history 00:09:38.379 --> 00:09:41.720 museum. But not a dusty, silent one. Not at all. 00:09:41.799 --> 00:09:43.960 The list of what happens there now is fantastic. 00:09:44.659 --> 00:09:47.299 Performances, author meetings, concerts, exhibitions, 00:09:47.559 --> 00:09:51.600 and my personal favorite, poetry evenings. The 00:09:51.600 --> 00:09:54.539 poetry came back. It's full circle. I mean, can 00:09:54.539 --> 00:09:56.600 you imagine going to a poetry night there today? 00:09:56.700 --> 00:09:58.820 You're sitting in the same acoustic space where 00:09:58.820 --> 00:10:01.240 this commander group sat a century ago? It collapses 00:10:01.240 --> 00:10:03.429 time. When you're in a space like that, doing 00:10:03.429 --> 00:10:05.370 the same activity as the ghosts of the past, 00:10:05.570 --> 00:10:09.269 the distance between, say, 1920 and today feels 00:10:09.269 --> 00:10:12.049 very, very thin. It validates the entire struggle. 00:10:12.269 --> 00:10:14.330 The house survived shelling. It survived the 00:10:14.330 --> 00:10:16.389 indignity of the guesthouse era. It survived 00:10:16.389 --> 00:10:19.289 the rot. All of that just to get back to this. 00:10:19.759 --> 00:10:21.919 People sharing ideas in a room. It shows that 00:10:21.919 --> 00:10:24.179 culture is resilient, but it isn't self -sustaining. 00:10:24.259 --> 00:10:26.580 It needs a vessel. Ideas need a place to land, 00:10:26.720 --> 00:10:29.360 a physical home. And Viliida proves a building 00:10:29.360 --> 00:10:31.679 can be that home. Even one made of something 00:10:31.679 --> 00:10:34.279 as fragile as wood. Especially then. So if we 00:10:34.279 --> 00:10:37.139 zoom out, what's the big takeaway? Why should 00:10:37.139 --> 00:10:39.340 we care about this one house in Poland? I think 00:10:39.340 --> 00:10:41.399 it's a reminder to look closer at the buildings 00:10:41.399 --> 00:10:44.740 around us. We walk past old dilapidated structures 00:10:44.740 --> 00:10:47.399 and we just see ruin. We don't see the layers. 00:10:47.559 --> 00:10:49.740 We don't see the salon that used to be in the 00:10:49.740 --> 00:10:51.700 living room. Or the history in the floorboards. 00:10:52.159 --> 00:10:54.259 Villa Ida was written off. It was abandoned. 00:10:54.740 --> 00:10:57.740 But someone saw the potential to reconnect it 00:10:57.740 --> 00:11:00.580 to its own story. And by doing that, they preserved 00:11:00.580 --> 00:11:03.480 the lineage. If the Cloteau family hadn't stepped 00:11:03.480 --> 00:11:07.240 in, the physical link to Scamander in that specific 00:11:07.240 --> 00:11:10.879 spot would just be gone. We'd have the books. 00:11:11.519 --> 00:11:13.299 But standing in the room where the book was discussed 00:11:13.299 --> 00:11:15.740 is a completely different experience. It makes 00:11:15.740 --> 00:11:18.220 these titans of literature feel like real people 00:11:18.220 --> 00:11:20.600 who just needed a place to hang out. Exactly. 00:11:20.879 --> 00:11:23.019 Well, we have tracked the journey from the first 00:11:23.019 --> 00:11:25.960 plank laid by Stanislaw Wilhelm Lilpop to the 00:11:25.960 --> 00:11:28.179 kids acting out plays there today. It's been 00:11:28.179 --> 00:11:30.879 a wild ride. A complete narrative arc. It really 00:11:30.879 --> 00:11:33.440 is. But before we wrap up, I have a question 00:11:33.440 --> 00:11:35.440 that's been sort of nagging me. We talk about 00:11:35.440 --> 00:11:38.879 the house remembering, but those kids, the ones 00:11:38.879 --> 00:11:41.620 playing the artistic games there now. They probably 00:11:41.620 --> 00:11:43.899 don't know the deep history. They might not know 00:11:43.899 --> 00:11:46.580 who Lil Pop was or the full weight of Jaroslav 00:11:46.580 --> 00:11:48.799 Ayahuasca, which they're just kids. They are. 00:11:48.940 --> 00:11:50.740 And that raises a really fascinating question 00:11:50.740 --> 00:11:53.879 about, well, the metaphysics of a space. Go on. 00:11:54.080 --> 00:11:57.519 Does the space influence them anyway? If a building 00:11:57.519 --> 00:12:00.879 retains a memory of its past, not in a ghost 00:12:00.879 --> 00:12:03.919 story way, but in its bones. Its architecture, 00:12:04.059 --> 00:12:06.320 its acoustics. Right. The way the light hits 00:12:06.320 --> 00:12:09.820 the floor. Does the legacy of those great poets. 00:12:11.319 --> 00:12:13.799 somehow seep into the art those children are 00:12:13.799 --> 00:12:15.860 creating right now. You mean, is the creativity 00:12:15.860 --> 00:12:18.799 literally in the walls? Think about it. Are those 00:12:18.799 --> 00:12:21.039 kids acting with a little more conviction or 00:12:21.039 --> 00:12:23.100 coming up with a slightly better line of dialogue 00:12:23.100 --> 00:12:25.500 because the room itself was shaped by and for 00:12:25.500 --> 00:12:28.580 those very things? Wow. Does the history of a 00:12:28.580 --> 00:12:31.679 place shape the art made inside it, even if the 00:12:31.679 --> 00:12:34.259 artist has no idea that history is there? That's 00:12:34.259 --> 00:12:36.320 a beautiful thought. That maybe the house is 00:12:36.320 --> 00:12:38.350 teaching them without them even knowing it. It's 00:12:38.350 --> 00:12:40.149 certainly something to think about the next time 00:12:40.149 --> 00:12:42.750 you walk into an old building. You never know 00:12:42.750 --> 00:12:46.669 who or what is influencing you. Absolutely. Well, 00:12:46.730 --> 00:12:48.529 on that note, we're going to close the doors 00:12:48.529 --> 00:12:52.090 on Villa Ada for today. A huge thank you to the 00:12:52.090 --> 00:12:54.509 historical records and researchers who kept these 00:12:54.509 --> 00:12:56.909 details alive. And to the people who are keeping 00:12:56.909 --> 00:12:59.830 that villa standing against all the odds. Indeed. 00:13:00.330 --> 00:13:02.929 Thanks for listening to this deep dive. Keep 00:13:02.929 --> 00:13:05.149 your eyes open for the history hiding in your 00:13:05.149 --> 00:13:06.769 own neighborhood. Until next time.