Railway Station

Short summary

Built

1919-1922

Architectural style

manor house style, referencing the Polish national style

Address

Plac Marszałka Józefa Piłsudskiego 1, 96-300 Żyrardów

Original purpose

passenger station on the Warsaw-Vienna Railway

Current purpose

active railway station serving passenger traffic

Visiting

the building is accessible as part of the functioning railway station

The building description was prepared in consultation with the staff of the Museum of Western Mazovia in Żyrardów.

Discover the history

The Warsaw-Vienna Railway line reached Żyrardów, then known as Ruda Guzowska, in 1845 and played a major role in the town’s development.

The first station building, constructed in the 1840s, was largely wooden and designed in the “Swiss” style by Jan Jakub Gay. A second, single-storey building was erected in the 1870s in red brick, in a barrack-like style. Around 1900, horse-drawn carriages still waited outside the station to take passengers to the centre of the Factory Settlement.

During the First World War, the railway infrastructure, including the station building, was badly damaged. After Poland regained independence, a large-scale programme of railway station reconstruction was launched. It was during this period, in 1919-1922, that the present station was built. The design is attributed to Romuald Miller, one of the most important architects involved in rebuilding Poland’s railway infrastructure after 1918.

The new building was given a form inspired by the traditional Polish manor house, intended to emphasise the identity of the newly independent state and symbolically create a representative gateway to the town.

The station survived the following decades while retaining both its function and architectural form. Today, it is included in the register of historic buildings. In 2026, the City of Żyrardów and PKP S.A. announced plans to modernise the building.

Time travel

Photo 1: Former railway station in Żyrardów, c. 1900 Collection: Museum of Western Mazovia in Żyrardów
Photo 2: Railway station, interwar period Source: zabytki.zyrardow.pl

Architecture

The previous brick station was a single-storey building with a two-storey, three-bay central projection. Its appearance can be seen in Photo 1 in the Time Travel section.

The present station was built using the walls of the earlier building, but was given a manor-house form. The building was constructed on an elongated rectangular plan, with projecting sections, a tower positioned on the central axis, and rectangular extensions at the shorter ends.

The form of the station draws on traditional Polish residential architecture. Its characteristic features include steep roofs, light-coloured rendered façades, elaborate entrance sections and an overall representative character. Elements of the historic interior decoration inspired by manor-house architecture have also survived.

Sources