Construction on the Museum of the History of Polish Jews is now underway Courtesy of the Warsaw City Hall

An international architectural competition for the conceptual design of the building of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk was decided on September 1. The winner: Gdynia-based Studio Architektoniczne Kwadrat.

The studio’s design was selected from a total of 240 works from 33 countries by a jury panel composed of renowned architects and artists including the American architect Daniel Libeskind, German architect and urban planner Hans Stimmann and Museum of London director Jack Lohman.

In the jury’s opinion the winning design has every chance of becoming one of the most important features of central Gdańsk.

It will be built on a 1.7 ha plot located in a historic part of Gdańsk which the city authorities have donated to the museum. The museum itself will provide approximately 15,000 sqm of floor area; in addition to exhibition space it will have a library and reading rooms, a research section and historical archives.

In the it’s managements’ own words, the museum’s mission is to create a modern outlet that will tell the history of the greatest cataclysm of the 20th century.

“This mission statement is perfectly valid considering that even though more than 70 years have passed since the outbreak of World War II, there is no museum in Europe that would present a comprehensive view of the conflict, its development and nature,” read a recent statement.

Construction will commence in 2012 and the opening is scheduled for September 1, 2014 – the 75th anniversary of the outbreak of WWII.

Designs galore

Poland’s museums do not have a reputation for being innovative or even particularly entertaining, either in form or content. This perception has considerably changed in recent years though, and although many communist-era institutions remain to this day champions of mediocrity, several projects set a completely different standard.

The Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk is scheduled to open on September 1, 2014 Courtesy of the Museum of the Second World War

Since then international architectural competitions have helped select designs for projects such as the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, the Museum of Polish History and the Museum of the Polish Army, all of which will be developed in Warsaw within the next few years.

For its part, Kraków will this week see the opening of a new Polish Aviation Museum building. Designed by Berlin’s Pysall Ruge Architekten studio, it will, according to architectural website Bryla.pl, be one of the most modern public-use buildings in Poland, meeting the top standards of passive architecture.

“It is clearly visible, with regard to museums, that our country is making up for failures of the past,” commented Jacek Droszcz, an architect at Studio Architektoniczne Kwadrat.

He added that the numerous museum designs that have appeared in Poland of late demonstrate that there is no single recipe for a good facility of this kind – the design has to be “wise” and correspond well to the context of its location.

Sign of the times

According to Dariusz Hyc, vice president of the Warsaw branch of the Union of Polish Architects (SARP), the trend reflects the constantly improving overall quality of architecture in Poland. It also shows how much the country’s economic situation has changed in recent years.

“It used to be mostly private investments that featured world-class designs. If the state is investing in such projects too, this simply means that we can afford it,” he said.

Mr Hyc noted that Polish architects are increasingly behind the winning designs. The younger generation of architects who have studied and worked abroad is now employing the best international ideas as well as generating such ideas themselves.

“We no longer have to copy from abroad. We are already building an architectural identity of our own,” he concluded.