Villa 'Koliba' was the first house built in Zakopane style. The construction works led by the architect Stanislaw Witkiewicz started in 1892 and lasted for one year. The villa was designed for Zygmunt Gnatowski, a Polish squire who needed a simple folk-style chalet to place his ethnographical collection. The modern museum was located in this building since 4 December 1993. Nowadays it's the unique place in Poland to find out about history and development of the first national archtectural style, theoretically developed as a conception and practically implemented.

The exposition displays 200-year history of the style. The theoretical grounds of the style were based by Stanislaw Witkiewicz on careful examination of house building processes in Tatra region. His first national style building is dated back to the times when Witkiewicz was a house painter and writer, so he didn't have any specific knowledge or skills in archtecture. Back then, the locals were those who helped him turn the plans into reality.

During 1886-1891 Stanislaw Witkiewicz was trying to involve in his projects professional archtects who had been creating villas, resorts and hotels massively erected in Zakopane in the late 19th century. Witkiewicz was passionate about creating the architecture in local folk style as the alternative to the 'Swiss' one, hugely popular around Europe those days. The efforts of the archtect payed off when Zakopane style started gradually developing: new buildings were constructed and public discourse on the topic appeared. Apart from villa 'Koliba', the other typical examples of the style are: villas 'Pepite' (1893), 'Korwinowka' (1895-1896) and 'Zofiowka' (1895-1896), the house 'Pod Jedlami' (1896-1897), the health resort 'Havranka' (1897-1898), etc.