In this video, BBGK Architekci take you into their recently completed Katyn Museum in Warsaw, Poland, a space dedicated to the events of the Katyn Massacre during World War II. Selected as a finalist for the 2017 EU Prize for Contemporary Architecture—Mies van der Rohe Award, the project bridges the divide between an existing historic structure and a new intervention through the use of material and the sequencing of sacred, powerful spaces.
It’s very moving and powerful to come here to Poland to find this place that is very much part of the city but also isolated. What I appreciate is the many barriers that you have to cross; the many sequences of gateways, dark spaces, light spaces; and then coming to the big open square where the forest itself reminds you of the reality of what happened.
– Aaron Betsky, architecture critic and dean of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture
Check out the video for a tour of the museum, with commentary from critics including Aaron Betsky, the director of Warsaw’s Heritage Protection Department Michał Krasucki, and editor-in-chief of Poland’s Architektura-Murator Magazine, Ewa P. Porębska.
Katyn Museum / BBGK Architekci
16 Bzozowski Grabowiecki Architekci; Jan Belina-Brzozowski, Konrad Grabowiecki Jan Belina-Brzozowski, Konrad Grabowiecki, Jerzy Kalina, Krzysztof Lang – with teams Joanna Orłowska, Marek Sobol, Emilia Sobańska, łukasz Węcławski, Agnieszka Grzywacz, Ewelina Wysokińska, Jacek Kretkiewicz, Tomasz Pluciński, Maciek Rąbek, Marcin Szulc, Barbara Trojanowska, Jolanta Fabiszewska From the architect.