Warsaw, Poland

Polish Army Museum

The project relates to the initial architectural and urban design of the Citadel. The museum building together with the cubature construction (open-air exposition under roof) is located in the area of the former barracks, which were destroyed during the II World War. The architectural dominant is the reconstructed Guard square with its representative function. Thanks to the uniformed floor surface, the square area is integrated with the museum hall. The adjacent park is also a part of this composition.

Because the building and its surroundings were treated as a whole and not as separated places, the history of the Polish Army may be better presented. A museum exhibit operates with items taken from their natural context. It emphasis on the intellectual message, operates with many details and text. An open-air exhibit gives possibility of bringing closer this missing context.The movement in the landscape, perspective, texture of materials, weather conditions and the greenery makes the message more clear and emotional.

Seeing the army from many sides may also be observed in our project – we introduced to the Citadel’s terrain functions not directly related to the museum, such as restaurants, cafes and clubs located on both sides of the entry zone. Institutions such as the Polish Army Museum fight for the leisure time of potential visitors with shopping centres and thus, it is important to prepare an interesting and entertaining offer, which would attract families.

Individual development zones, that is the entry zone, the embankments – exhibit of cannons, the central zone with temporal exhibits, the left bastion with food services, the waves – exhibit of airplanes, the right bastion with the exhibit for children, the trenches – exhibit of armored vehicles, an amphitheater, the water exposure at the Execution Gate were all arranged along the communication route. The sightseeing tour is a sequence of changing landscapes, which consists of several layers: type of weapon, type of battlefield and emotions.

The architectural concept of the museum building itself was created on the basis of functional and spatial analysis of the area in which the object will be located. We designed a building which thanks to its simple form and subtle details will become one with the Citadel tissue, as another missing element in this cluttered by history urban puzzle. The designed building is of a compact cubature and modular construction. The facade of the building is a set of planes with varying degrees of shutter openings. Three degrees of shutter openings complete the architectural composition and reflect the functional setting of interiors. Our main principles when working on the functions of the building were clearance, simplicity and convenience. All rooms were designed in accordance with detailed competition guidelines. The floorage of the museum building is of approximately 51 320 m2.

The design of the building is based on the exhibit module (the main function of the museum) of 60×25x5m dimensions. The exhibit module of 1 500 m2 consists of the main hall, additional annexes, technical corridor and ancillary rooms. The sightseeing route leads in one direction, starting and ending in the main hall. Scientific and administrative functions were separated from the sightseeing route, but still remain in good communication with other functions of the museum. We truly hope, that our design of the Museum located in the Warsaw Citadel will properly present rich and glorious history of the Polish Army.

The design team members:

Zbigniew Wroński, Szczepan Wroński, Grzegorz Sławiński, Jan Jaworski, Kuba Kupikowski, Rafał Kłos, Anna Wójtowicz, Zuzanna Bujacz, Aleksander Hońca

Europaconcorsi Beta

Polish Army Museum