Type: Museum
Developer: Polish History Museum, Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage
Owner: Polish History Museum, Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage
Designers: WXCA
Site Size: 10.9 acres (4.4 ha)
Date Opened: September 29, 2023
Date Completed: September 29, 2023
Buildings: 474,688 square feet (44,100 sq m)
Parking Spaces: 691
For almost 200 years, the Warsaw Citadel in the heart of Poland’s capital was a restricted military and administrative area, cut off from public access. With the recent opening of the Polish History Museum, as well as the new Polish Army Museum, the 19th-century fortress’s 74-acre (30 ha) grounds now serve as a multifunctional facility and park that both preserves and showcases the country’s rich cultural heritage.
The design team configured the Polish History Museum to occupy the footprint of the former Polish Royal Foot Guard barracks and, in tandem with the Polish Army Museum’s two wings, frame a public square.
Marta Sękulska-Wrońska, partner at architectural firm WXCA, which designed the museum, says that the project carries profound significance in a country that has experienced complex historical challenges: Poland was always in the middle between East and West. From 1795 to 1918, Polish lands were divided between Russia, Prussia, and Austria.
“Poland was not present as a state on European maps for 123 years,” she says. “After regaining independence in 1918, the Second Polish Republic lasted until 1939, when it fell victim to German and Soviet aggression. After World War II, the Poles were not able to celebrate their identity, as it found itself in the Soviet sphere of influence. There was no significant investment in culture.” Once Poland regained its independence in 1989, the Polish History Museum project became particularly meaningful once again.
The new building’s minimalist, monolithic form resembles a hewn stone block; its façade features marble slabs, of varying grains, arrayed in horizontal bands that suggest both geological strata and layers of history. “We thought about the strata visible in stone, because in stone you see the history of our planet,” Sękulska-Wrońska says. “Each slab of stone has its own face, like people who created history also had their own lives and faces, but all together they make an image that we see now from a distance.”
Although the building appears as a monolithic stone block from afar, closer examination reveals that the marble slabs create a gradient effect. The slabs are lighter in color at the top and darker at the bottom. “It’s the same marble, but it is finished in different ways,” Sękulska-Wrońska says. The effect, she adds, is particularly beautiful “when the sky is gray and the grayish stone merges with the sky.”
To provide operational flexibility, the permanent exhibition hall—78,577 square feet (7,300 sq m)—is free of support columns, while the temporary exhibition hall holds an additional 15,000 square feet (1,400 sq m) of space. Besides housing administrative offices, the museum also serves as a community hub, with 80 percent of its space dedicated to public engagement through educational programs, performances, and community events.
Visitors can access specific areas of the building from different parts of the surrounding park. This design allows busy events in the conference hall, the exhibition center, and the restaurant to take place simultaneously without interfering with each other.
The permanent exhibition on Poland’s history is scheduled to open in November 2026. In the meantime, the museum is hosting a full roster of rotating exhibits, lectures, historical walks, competitions, and other public programs. “The museum intends to serve as a community gathering place,” says Anna Piekarska, the facility’s deputy director for education and communication. “We want the museum to be a place where families would like to come. This year we started a special program. We invite mothers to bring very young children, two or three years old, to the museum and spend time with our exhibitions.”
Notable features include a 600-seat auditorium that Sękulska-Wrońska says was designed to deliver “the best acoustics, even for a symphonic concert,” and can accommodate electro-acoustic performances as well. The venue, which Piekarska calls “one of the best in Warsaw, maybe Poland,” hosts numerous concerts and is available for lease.
Besides having spacious conference and education facilities, other public amenities include a cinema/theater, a library, a recording studio, and a rooftop viewing platform. “We designed the so-called fifth elevation of the building, the rooftop, so that when you go up there, you have a 360-degree panorama of Warsaw,” Sękulska-Wrońska says. “Part of the roof is a green roof, with beautiful colors changing with the seasons.”
The museum also features specialized facilities for preserving Poland’s cultural heritage. “The museum has a large storage place for the collection,” Piekarska says. These facilities include conservation workshops and collection archives tucked underground alongside parking.
Sustainability and longevity were central to the design. Natural materials—such as stone and brass—require minimal maintenance and can be reused at the end of the building’s life cycle. Energy efficiency is enhanced by the structure’s compact shape and limited glazing, and its massive walls provide thermal stability throughout the year. Ground-source borehole heat pumps supply low-temperature underfloor heating and cooling.
The Warsaw Citadel not only holds Poland’s national heritage collections but now embodies one of Europe’s largest and most modern museum complexes. It reconnects a historic site to the city and creates an active, cultural heart that bridges past and present.
“We need to think about how to attract the young generation—the internet native,” Sękulska-Wrońska says. “We need to prepare them to be in contact with physical artifacts that are not on the flat screen, but are real, have their light and shadow, have their history, and bring the value from the past to the present and hopefully also to the future.”
