Museum of the Lubomirski Princes

TYPE: Competition | SECTOR: Public | AREA: 7'962 m² | LOCATION: Wroclaw, Poland

TEAM: CROPKA architects | Mechanical and plumbing engineering: Mechanical | Electrical engineering: ELPA | Structural and fire engineering: Cundall | Landscape: Flor

New Museum of the Lubomirski Princes tightly fills the building site. Line of façade in the ground floor gradually steps back from the building line, imposed by the planning regulations, towards the crossroads of Uniwesytecki Plaza with Aleksander Fredro street. In this prominent corner the main entrance has been located. It is additionally highlighted by lifting of the external cladding and a large, inviting glass frontage. Shape and volume of external envelope harmoniously fit into surrounding urban-fabric. Roof at the building-s perimeter slopes at a 50 degree angle matching the surrounding listed architecture. Top of the roof is conceived as a fifth elevation – an extensive green roof enters a dialogue with the neighboring gardens of Ossolineum.

The museum houses an extraordinary collection of art works as well as a spectacular model of the city of Lviv designed and built in the 1930s and 40s by Janusz Witwicki, an architect and architecture historian, who paid the highest price for saving the model from being taken by the Soviets - his own life.

The connection with the city of Lviv, wherefrom the Museum originates and existed until it was forced to move after the second world war, can be seen in the perforated bronze façade. The perforation is inspired by an XVIII century panorama of the city, which at first glance abstract, after a careful observation becomes clearly recognizable.