Conservation and storage centre of the National Museum in Warsaw
P2PA, 2022
award: first place
type: competition entry for the extension of the National Museum in Warsaw
collaboration: Aleksander Blicharski, Paweł Floryn, Łukasz Kaczmarek, Jakub Podgórski and Maciej Popławski
sketches: Paweł Floryn
visualizations: VA Arts
responsibilities: designing architecture conception, designing landscape conception, drawing landscape plans, drawing urban diagrams
The standard museum facility is dualistic in its functionality. It divides space into what is open and public and what is closed and inaccessible. Contemporary institutions are striving to open up and get out of this rigid framework. They are transforming themselves from formal spaces into activating meeting places. In this process, the element that attracts visitors is not only the exhibit. An inaccessible and invisible process becomes interesting and exciting on a daily basis.
The pavilion’s location at the intersection of the inner city and open green spaces is a nodal point on the city scale. As a result, it is likely to become a catalyst giving impetus to the revaluation of this space. By removing barriers and creating new communication links, it will be possible to rebuild relations with the Warsaw Escarpment, the Powiśle area and the Vistula River. This ensures that the park is well connected and gives the opportunity to create an outdoor space of a recreational nature, which can serve as
a park-like entrance to the Museum building.
The pavilion strives to implement the postulates of openness and inclusiveness characteristic of park space and contemporary museology. Through its structure, it addresses the dualistic nature of museums in a non-obvious way. The structure is made up of rhythmically spaced cubes, which in their arrangement shape empty and full spaces that play with each other building insights and relationships.
The building respectfully approaches the park greenery and seeks solutions that connect and activate. On the axis towards the Vistula River, which is formed by a naturally occurring ravine, there is a crossing passage, which communicates the higher ground on the west side with the created park square in front of the museum’s risalit. Passing through it allows one to experience a sequence of openings that make it possible to observe the processes taking place in parts of the building that normally remain inaccessible.