Museum open at 12:00pm
Cinema is closed now
Museum open at 12:00pm
Cinema is closed now
Szumin
A Walk Through the Forests and Meadows with Michał Książek
and a guided tour of the Zofia and Oskar Hansen House in Szumin
15.08.2026 14:00
Tickets
Regular: 45 PLN
Reduced: 30 PLN
Family*: 90 PLN
*4 people, including a maximum of two adults with children under 18
Location
Szumin, at the intersection of Podleśna and Jegiel Streets, by the roadside shrine
Language
Polish
A visit to Szumin and a guided tour of the Zofia and Oskar Hansen House is a wonderful opportunity to gain a much broader perspective on this place. We’ll focus not only on the architects’ famous home, but also on Szumin as a natural habitat for many species of birds, insects, and plants.
We’ve divided the event into two parts:
Part One: A poetic and activist walk through the forests and meadows around Szumin
We’ll look at the landscape along the Bug River through the lens of water. We’ll try to see where it flows, where it pools, and how the forest helps store it. We’ll explain why the amount of water that remains in our landscape depends on how the forests are managed.
We’ll be joined on the walk by Michał Książek — a poet, reporter, ornithologist, and naturalist who listens with equal attention to the voices of people, birds, and trees. As we walk through the forests, meadows, and wetlands along the Bug River, we’ll trace the local water cycle. We’ll consider how forest management decisions affect water retention, biodiversity, and the landscape’s resilience to drought. We’ll also share the story of the residents of Szumin themselves, who organized to protect the forests surrounding their village from logging. It was from this grassroots initiative that the Forests and Citizens Foundation was born, which today supports local forest conservation movements throughout Poland. We’ll wrap up the walk with tea and lemonade together.
Part Two: Tour of the Hansen House
After the walk, we’ll enter the Hansen House, where Tomasz Fudala, a curator and staff member at the Museum of Modern Art, will guide us on a tour. Szumin is not just an architectural experiment—it’s also an extraordinary space for daily rituals and relationships: it’s dinners at a table set in an opening under the roof, it’s working together in the garden, the dovecote, summer gatherings, and outdoor art openings. For the Hansens, the house was more than just a place to live. It became the practical embodiment of their Open Form theory—a space that evolves alongside its inhabitants and responds to their needs as they arise.
Facilitator
Michał Książek (b. 1978)—poet, reporter, cultural studies scholar, forestry engineer, and ornithologist. A multi-award-winning author of books (including *Road 816* and *Atlas of Holes and Cracks*), in which nature is not merely a backdrop but a full-fledged protagonist in stories about the world and humanity’s place in it. He has published in *Polityka*, *Twórczość*, and *Przekrój*. Winner of the 2015 Silesius Wrocław Poetry Prize in the debut category for *Nauka o ptakach*. In 2024, he was honored with the Literary Award of the Capital City of Warsaw.
Tomasz Fudala (b. 1980) – art historian, curator of the Hansen House in Szumin, and staff member at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. He received the Architectural Award of the Mayor of Warsaw for the exhibition “The Dispute Over Reconstruction” (2015).
Tickets
Check ticket availability before visiting Szumin! Tickets can be purchased online and at the Museum ticket office at Marszałkowska 103.
Buy a ticket before visiting Szumin (preferably online). Tickets cannot be purchased on-site. If you arrive in Szumin without a pre-purchased ticket, unfortunately you will not be able to visit the Hansen family home. Due to conservation requirements, the number of visitors to Zofia and Oskar Hansen’s home in Szumin is very limited.
Important information about tickets: The event is offered as a package (walk + tour). Participation in the walk with Michał Książek is completely free, and the fee applies only to admission to the Hansen House. Due to the intimate nature of the event (limited to 18 people), both parts form a single package, and registration for both is required through the purchase of a ticket.
How do I get to Szumin?
There are several ways to get to Zofia and Oskar Hansen’s house in Szumin:
• by private car: please park in the parking lot on Podleśna Street (96A Podleśna St., 07-130 Szumin). The parking lot is about a 15-minute walk from the house. Please take this into account and arrive early enough.
• by train with a bicycle: you can get off at the Barchów or Łochów station and continue by bike. You can leave your bike in the Hansens’ garden.
• by taxi from Łochów
Event Partner
This project was supported by the Stefan Batory Foundation as part of the Stronger Roots program, funded by the European Union under the “Citizens, Equality, Rights, and Values” program (CERV). The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held liable for them.
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