The year 2025 will mark the passage of one hundred years since the unexpected death of one of the most outstanding Polish architects of the beginning of the 20th century— Jan Fryderyk Heurich (1873–1925), referred to as Junior, as well as Son and The Younger. Jan Heurich, Jr., is considered one of the precursors of the Modern Movement in Polish architecture. The memory of this exceptional architect is particularly important now that the heritage of Modernism is being carefully analyzed. The legacy of his creativity encompasses several of his works that still exist today.

In spite of relatively numerous sources on the creative work of Jan Heurich, Jr., information and materials devoted to him are dispersed and fail to give a full and cohesive picture of the achievements of this architect as well as of his social and public work. Apart from being a rightful commemoration on the one–hundredth anniversary of his death, this paper hopes to serve as a contribution to further research devoted to the life and work of this architect. The article—the fi rst part of a work devoted to the architect—contains information on his origins, education, and early professional career—i.e. preceding the year 1907, which is when he commenced work on his largest projects built in Warsaw: the Krasiński (Raczyński) tenement house, the BTS Cooperative Association Bank, the PTH Polish Hygienic Society, and the Public Library Building on Koszykowa Street.

Bibliographic and cartographic research, archival analyses, and in situ studies of certain preserved buildings based on the designs of Heurich, Jr. were conducted for the purposes of this article. A document that proved signifi cant in the preparing of this text was the biography of the architect from around the year 1918. It includes information on the architect’s education, study trips throughout Europe and North Africa, and over fi fty–three architectural works from the years 1900–1917, eight competition designs, and pedagogical, public, and social, works.

During his early period of creativity, Jan Heurich, Jr. was a representative of Historicism, which is seen in the discussed article. The architect was privy to signifi cant theoretical knowledge on historical styles and had the skills to apply them in practice. He was accomplished in using scale and architectural detail from various stylistic periods. Thanks to this, he was predestined to design the type of architecture for which the costume of the era was key. However, the architect was also familiar with the quest for both vernacular architecture based on the traditional Polish manor house and new solutions characteristic of Early Modernism and Secession. In spite of the fact that his works from the years 1900–1906 do not yet form a cohesive collection—the crop of the works of an experienced designer—there can be no doubt that this was a period of good praxis, networking, and shaping a professional position.