Dreams and Reality. The Building of the National Museum in Warsaw

12 May– 16 October 2016
 

The National Museum in Warsaw prepared an exhibition that sheds light on the history of the planning and construction of its seat – one of the most recognizable and characteristic buildings of modernist Warsaw. The authors of the exhibition outline the problem of its location within the landscape of the capital and reopen the debate on the need to extend it, thereby posing topical questions about the place of museums in the urban space. By showing competition drawings and commissioned designs, the exhibition presents architectural trends associated with public buildings in the 1920s and 1930s and explains why, given the multitude of ideas, Tadeusz Tołwiński’s design is the one we are familiar with today. The Museum is organizing lectures, walks around its former seats, guided tours of the exhibition and the building itself as well as art and architecture workshops for children.

The history of the National Museum in Warsaw encompasses more than just the fate of the collection and persons who accumulated works of art, ensuring their safety for dozens of years. It is also the story of subsequent seats of the institution and endeavours to exhibit the collection in a functional and modern building. Fortunately, we know this fragment of Warsaw's history thanks to surviving sources presented at the exhibition Dreams and Reality. The Building of the National Museum in Warsaw. We are going to see pre-war designs of the Museum building, allowing us to imagine what the National Museum in Warsaw was to look like according to visions of contemporary architects.

The Polish state, newly established after 123 years of bondage, organised a competition for the design of a government and museum district in Ujazdów in 1919 – just a year after regaining independence. The idea to include the National Museum within the complex of government buildings testifies to the state-building role ascribed to art at the time. After the project was abandoned, a new competition for the NMW building on Aleja 3 Maja was organized in 1924. The title “dream and reality” is a juxtaposition of visions – of “a museum district” and the construction of “a museum that gathers everything and shows everything” – with reality: a change of the location and significant reduction of both exhibition and usable space.

The exhibition follows a chronological narrative. It begins with a presentation of photographs from the provisional seat of the National Museum at 15 Podwale Street (1919–1938) and charts from the 1919 competition for the government and museum district in Ujazdów. The part devoted to the 1924 general competition for the building of the National Museum in Aleje Jerozolimskie (then Aleja 3 Maja) gathers together unique photographs from 1904, showing the location of the future building (from the collection of Jacek Dehnel) and a selection of drawings from all purchased competition designs by architects from Warsaw, Lviv and Krakow. Especially noteworthy is the fragment presenting the stylish design by Jan Heurich, which closely followed the director’s guidelines. It allows to form a rather detailed impression of the Museum’s appearance, further aided by a model at a scale of 1:200 (made specially for the exhibition by Wojciech Zasadni). Work on the building was discontinued as a result of Jan Heurich’s death in December 1925, which forced the Construction Committee to select a design in a closed competition. Visitors are able to compare the works of the three invited architects: Tadeusz Tołwiński, Czesław Przybylski and Zdzisław Mączeński, and make their own assessment of whether Tołwiński’s concept was indeed the most appropriate selection. They may also discover alternative, unrealized designs for the façade decoration by Tołwiński and Gembarzewski, as well as follow the evolution of the building’s vision at subsequent stages of the design process.

The founding act and the act of handing over the Museum to the nation open the part devoted to the most important stages of the construction of the current NMW seat. Interestingly, a year before the building was handed over for use, Stanisław Lorentz, who became the Museum’s director in 1936, came up with the idea of revolutionary changes. However, these plans were abandoned as a result of the outbreak of World War II. Later on, they were revisited many times, ultimately coming to fruition in 1972 with the construction of the so-called avant-corps to the main building. Unfortunately, this investment too failed to satisfy the needs related to the tasks and collection of the National Museum in Warsaw, out of which a mere 2 per cent may currently be exhibited. The Museum building as we know it is shown by the second model at a scale of 1:200 (also made by Wojciech Zasadni). The majority of the drawings and photographs are shown for the first time in history, while the drawings from the general competition are made available to the public for the first time in 91 years (they were last exhibited in January 1925 in the town hall on Teatralny Square).

The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with essays on the subsequent seats of the institution, the architectural form of the erected Museum and ideas for its extension.

The additional programme includes walks around the city along the traces of the Museum’s former seats, a special programme commemorating the NMW’s anniversary, workshops for children, meetings and guided tours of the exhibition together with an architectural walk around the building as well as lectures (e.g. by Grzegorz Piątek from Centrum Architektury).

Curator of the exhibition: Piotr Kibort, curator at the Department of Prints and Drawings of the NMW