From Emilia to the Vistula river bank
the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw will build a temporary exhibition pavilion near the Copernicus Science Center

  • From Emilia to the Vistula river bank

    Visualisation of scale and placement of the Museum by the Vistula river pavilion designed by Adolf Krischanitz

From Emilia to the Vistula river bank - the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw will build a temporary exhibition pavilion near the Copernicus Science Center.

The last months brought about a lot of changes and important events for the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw and its audience. The last three exhibitions in the Emilia pavilion could only be seen till May 1st, and at midnight on May 14th - during Museum Night - the Museum left the pavilion for good and returned it to its owner. Between the closing of the exhibitions and Museum Night, Emilia hosted a number of events - a conference on post-war Polish architecture, performances, concerts and guided tours, among others, which culminated just before midnight on the May 14th.

The Museum continues its activities at Pańska 3, which hosts its offices, holds exhibitions on the ground floor, and where the Bookoff bookstore and Emesen are open. In the fall season the Museum will again invite its audience to the annual “Warsaw Under Construction” festival organised together with the Museum of Warsaw. Apart from the festival, the Museum will hold a series of events devoted to performance art in the fall.

The fall will also be the time of a major event for the Museum and TR Warszawa theater. That's when ground will be broken for the future buildings of both institutions on Defilad square. Earlier this year, during the summer, we are expecting to be granted building permits for the constructions designed by the American architect Thomas Phifer. This year we will see the beginning of ground works and the moving of underground utility infrastructure, while construction work will begin in the spring of 2017 and last 36 months.

In the coming three years the Museum will organize exhibitions in a special pavilion, which will be located near the Vistula river, on Stanisława Skibniewskiego “Cubryny” square - on the north side of the Copernicus Science Center and opposite the Warsaw University Library. The construction of the pavilion will begin by the end of 2016 and the first exhibition will open in early March 2017.

The pavilion is a unique, wooden, module construction designed by the brilliant Austrian architect Adolf Krischanitz. The folding exhibition building was originally designed as the Temporäre Kunsthalle temporary art gallery in Berlin. It was erected on a parcel previously occupied by the Palace of the Republic in the center of the German capital, and served as a space for presenting art between 2008 and 2010. The pavilion, with a surface area of 1000 square meters and a height of 10 meters, holds 600 square meters of exhibition space, a small cafe and a bookstore. It was also designed by the architect so that the facade can be used as canvas by artists. In Berlin for the majority of the time it was covered with a blue and white abstract geometric composition by the Austrian artist Gerwald Rockenschaub, but it was also repainted by others, including the German artist and contemporary music composer Carsten Nicolai. The Museum will also invite artists to design the facade in Warsaw.

The pavilion is lent to the Museum free of charge by the owner, Vienna's Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Foundation, founded in 2002 by Francesca von Habsburg. The foundation is dedicated to the popularization of experimental art and architecture. The Museum's ambition is for the Vistula pavilion to repeat the success of Emilia and become a popular meeting place for Warsaw's residents and guests of the city, as well as to enrich the surroundings of the Copernicus Science Center, Warsaw University Library and the restored river boulevards by adding an interesting exhibition and event program.

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