Krakow Day 3

Shortly after planning to visit Krakow, I realized that Auschwitz-Birkenau was a day trip away, and decided that visiting this site would be necessary to my research. In studying the role and legacy of spaces associated with human conflict, and the methods of commemoration used to educate people about these events, Auschwitz is an essential example. This was the largest of the concentration camps built by the Nazis during the war, and the most deadly. An estimated 1.1 million people were murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau alone. As a result, this site is the most notorious, and now, the best-preserved. Though the Germans intended to destroy the site and evidence of its existence, they succeeded only partially (only foundations and chimneys remain of wooden barracks, but the many brick buildings on the site remain largely intact. the crematoriums were blown up, but ruins remain on display).

Experiencing these buildings and understanding how they were used is the main premise of the museum. Several of the remaining barracks now host exhibits pertaining to the site’s history - one, for example, features displays of personal belongings removed from victims: entire rooms full of shoes, kitchen implements, suitcases, etc. These exhibits are simply displayed, however, with just a few informational plaques in each space, allowing photos, objects, and the space itself to tell the story.

Personally, I think this method of narrative exhibition design is more powerful than those intending to immerse the viewer in an alternate, constructed space: being in those rooms and seeing photos and belongings of those who had occupied the space was very powerful. I do recognize, though, that this strategy is particularly successful in a place like Auschwitz, where the buildings themselves are infamous for the events that occurred there - you just don’t need any additional material to convey the gravity of these events. Relying on the emotion of visiting the space itself would not necessarily be the best strategy for all commemorative projects.

In all, this was a very emotional and powerful experience. The material is very clearly presented, and moving through the site - experiencing moments depicted in now famous photographs, such as walking through the ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ gate or through barbed wire corridors - really engages visitors with the emotions of those who lived this experience.

Krakow Day 2

My main priority in Krakow is the site of Schindler’s Enamel Factory, which is shared by a branch of the Krakow Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Krakow.

Pathway leading behind Schindler’s Factory to the Mocak (left)

The Muzeum Krakowa - Oscar Schindler’s Enamel Factory is located in an original factory building on the site, and features an extensive exhibit chronicling the German occupation of Krakow, and a smaller exhibit acknowledging the story of Schindler’s list. The exhibit is immersive, employing several different multimedia techniques to engage the visitor with the material: text and images, video, projection, audio, etc. Each space is designed to evoke a scene related to the information in the space: a reconstruction of a train car, reconstructions of daily life in the Jewish quarter, the simulation of a concentration camp yard and fence. The historical exterior remains intact, which acknowledges the original role and presence of the building, though the design of the interior was removed from this context. While the museum’s material was of course related to the context of the original building, this wasn’t particularly evident as one moves through the exhibition.

The idea to create individual, immersive spaces and experiences for the visitor as they move through a presented narrative is a distinct and justifiable strategy for exhibition design, but given the museum’s location inside a historical building related to its content, I was surprised that there wasn’t a stronger relationship between the building and the exhibition. This style of installation isn’t necessarily my favorite: I felt that the constant overlapping of media and the artificiality of some of the spaces was overstimulating, and didn’t help me engage with the material (I acknowledge though, that this type of exhibition might be more engaging for some people, particularly children. Given that the Home Army Museum also employed this strategy, it seems to be popular here).

I was able to discuss the project with a museum representative, and learned that the building is not actually original, it was effectively rebuilt after the war, and continued serving as administrative offices for a manufacturing company on the site for several years. However, the facade has kept its original appearance, more or less, and the gate at the center of the building is original. Because the building itself wasn’t necessarily in a condition to authentically frame Schindler’s story, and because there was a desire to address the larger historical context of WWII and the German occupation, the decision was made to devote most of the space to the immersive historical exhibition, with a smaller space dedicated to the Schindler story. This space used period-appropriate objects to artistically recreate Schindler’s office because the original had not been preserved, with the exception of the map on the wall, which is actually original (and was featured in the movie.) Original objects from the factory are also featured throughout the exhibit, including enamel products manufactured on site.

I think these circumstances explain the building’s role in the exhibit, and the museum’s attitude toward acknowledging the site context. The significance of the location is certainly acknowledged, but there just wasn’t a great opportunity to convey this information using the original space. I also learned that renovating the building for this use presented great challenges: being a historical building, they were unable to alter it too significantly, putting in just one elevator, and stopping short of the mechanical updates that would have been preferred. As a result, since its opening in 2010 the museum has encountered mechanical and accessibility issues, and is hoping to eventually conduct another renovation. I think this represents an important issue for adaptive reuse: how much of the building needs to be preserved in order to maintain its historical significance? How much needs to be updated in order for the building to be used efficiently and successfully?

The project was relatively cheap (~5 million USD) and has generated 3x that amount in profits, which was unexpected. This is also part of the adaptive reuse trade-off: the more you replace, the more you spend, but the more you prepare for longevity. Ideally, a project like this could be a success by completing a modest renovation on a smaller budget, but I wonder where the line is between current necessity and sacrificing future performance.

By contrast, the Museum of Contemporary Art Krakow employs an exhibition strategy common among contemporary art museums: the space is stark and simple, and each artwork has the agency to define the space around it to a certain extent. The building itself has been very thoughtfully responsive to the site context: its scale and volume reacts to that of the adjacent buildings, and the roof mimics the sawtooth of adjacent industrial buildings. An original factory wall is preserved on the front facade, enclosed by storefront windows to form a dramatic corridor.

Beyond these design decisions, the project doesn’t directly address the historical context of the site, but the museum’s partnership with Schindler’s Enamel Factory next door (consisting of shared tickets for a discount, mutual publications in gift shops, etc.) accounts for this to a certain extent. I bought a small paperback about the history of the site and the development of both museums in the Mocak gift shop.

The insertion of these museums into this formerly industrial neighborhood has had a visible effect in the past 10 years - several new residential buildings have been completed, several companies have moved their office spaces to this area, and several new restaurants have popped up. I’m sure the subject of adaptive reuse as it relates to urban renewal and gentrification would be a really interesting master’s thesis (maybe in another life).

I was excited to find so many examples of projects in Krakow that employ methods of adaptive reuse and commemoration. These four projects are all very different in how they make use of these strategies, and I think each provides valuable insight as to the application of these strategies.

Krakow Day 1

My first stop in Krakow was the Home Army Museum (Museum AK): a museum dedicated to commemorating the efforts of the Polish underground state and Armia Krajowa (“Home Army”) throughout the 20th century. The Polish underground army was the largest resistance force of any occupied nation during WWII, and whose existence was not publicly commemorated until the museum was founded in 2000. The museum reuses a 19th-century barracks building, which was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire’s Krakow Fortress complex.

The renovation is very simple, modernizing the first floor of the building and creating infrastructure for vertical circulation, but featuring the original brick walls of the barracks throughout, recollecting the building’s original state. The centerpiece is the courtyard, now covered by a steel and glass canopy - both a refreshing interlude in one’s movement through the building, and a strategy to modernize the courtyard without stripping it of its original facade. I think this method of adaptive reuse is very successful in this situation: the building’s original context and presence is acknowledged and showcased, while not only meeting the program needs, but updating the interior in a way that creates new focal points throughout.

The installation itself is exhaustive and informative, chronicling the German occupation of Poland and its ramifications, setting the stage for and then closely following the efforts of the Home Army and Underground State. I was very interested to learn so much about Poland’s perspective during this time. I didn’t realize, for example, that the Nazis considered the Poles inferior to the Aryan race, and though not quite placing them on the ‘subhuman’ level of Jews and Romani people, made concerted efforts to exploit and eliminate Polish people in German-occupied territory. Poland lost 20% of its population during the war, more than any other occupied nation. There was a distinct feeling from the exhibition that the Polish collective memory of the war is not only that they were victimized by the Germans (and then the Soviets), but that the Polish people were betrayed by the allies in the aftermath of WWII, their bids for independence unheard.

In all, I thought this was a compelling adaptive reuse project, successful in its acknowledgement of the original building and prioritization of new programming.

Next, I visited the Cricoteka museum, which has adapted the site of a former power plant into a museum of the film artist Tadeusz Kantor. This building employs a mode of adaptive reuse in which a completely new volume is introduced to the site, reacting to the existing building, but maintaining its own distinct materiality and vocabulary of form. These two elements of the building are connected on the lower level, but appear on the surface to be two entirely separate structures.

The new portion of the building is clad in what appear to be prefabricated, perforated corten steel panels. Though modern, I thought the color and texture of the facade reacted well to the materiality of the original building, rather than creating a super high contrast (i.e. the colors go together, and the weathered texture speaks to the age of the original building and materials). The perforations also create really lovely light and shadow effects on the interior, resulting in movement throughout the day, or as the trees outside sway in the wind. This texture and motion may or may not have been a reference to Kantor’s video art, but I think it feels appropriate.

The information pamphlet referenced the building’s original use as a power plant and apparent later uses as a homeless shelter, but I could find no other acknowledgement of this on the site. Though this doesn’t quite fulfill my hopes for a project to address the historical context of the site, I was interested to learn that the permanent exhibit of Kantor’s work reveals that his interests were somewhat aligned with adaptive reuse: The action of wrapping (and of concealing and manipulating objects in general) was central to Kantor’s work. The exhibit “Spectres,” on the upper level, also states the artist’s intent through this work to address the role of various events impacting human history: “reading, in the concatenations of form, the forces governing our age.”

I think the connection between this artistic pursuit and the project’s architectural motifs is probably not evident to the average visitor (and is possibly just something I’m projecting) but I can’t help but feel like it fits. I’m interested in this idea that in the case of museums, the design of the building plays one role, and the design of the exhibition plays another. They can react to one another, or remain totally detached. I am most interested in these examples where the building’s history and design inform the exhibit within, and vice versa.