Its design was prepared by architects from the WXCA studio. The Museum of the Greater Poland Uprising 1918-1919 is being built at the foot of St. Adalbert’s Hill in Poznań, just a few minutes’ walk from the historic centre. The museum will soon become a space for nurturing the memory of the heroic uprising and the great victory of the Wielkopolska people. It will also be a place where a unique collection of over two thousand exhibits will find a home, showing Wielkopolska’s nearly two-hundred-year-long road to independence. Everything will be enclosed in modernist forms.
The architecture of the new museum will become a bridge between the past and the present. Its heart will be hidden underground, where the permanent exhibition hall is being built. The central exhibition space, designed in the shape of a rotunda and occupying more than 3,000 square metres, will be covered by an impressive dome with a span of 30 metres. Work on this unique structure has just been completed. A city square will stretch out over the ground – a contemporary agora, a place for meeting and dialogue, created with the citizens of Poznań in mind.
Construction of the new building of the Museum of the Greater Poland Uprising 1918-1919 began on 16 February 2024, on the 105th anniversary of the signing of the Truce of Trier – the symbolic date of recognition of the insurgents’ victory. So far, intensive work has been going on underground, where a monumental underground storey has been created. This is where the ‘heart of the museum’ will be located – a permanent exhibition space commemorating the patriotic uprising and the great victory of the Greater Poland people. A spectacular dome will rise above the circular rotunda, emphasising the unique status of this place.
The current stage of construction of the new headquarters of the Wielkopolska Uprising Museum 1918-1919 in Poznań is a turning point of sorts – the moment when the construction begins to emerge from the ground, both in the structural and visual sense. The most spectacular event is the progressive dismantling of the temporary structural buttresses, as a result of which the full scale of the permanent exhibition space is revealed. It is a process in which the construction step by step begins to give way to space. The framework of the rotunda, the height relationships and the clear outline of the interior can already be clearly seen,” reports Adam Mierzwa, WXCA architect.
Building visualisation:
In order to give museum-goers maximum freedom in arranging the exhibition, the architects have kept the number of structural elements in the representative hall to an absolute minimum. This is where the exhibition will be set up, which will present in a narrative way the nearly two-hundred-year history of the Wielkopolska road to independence, crowned by the victorious Uprising. The permanent exhibition will showcase more than two thousand original, often unique objects – including hitherto unshown personal mementos of the insurgents.
With the closing of ceiling zero, the new museum is increasingly going above ground level. Currently, the walls of four above-ground volumes with complementary functions are being built above ground level. These buildings will house modern spaces for a broad programme of cultural and scientific-educational activities: an auditorium, library, reading room, workshop rooms, temporary exhibition rooms, rooms for the conservation of museum artefacts, technical rooms and workplaces for the institution’s staff.
The architectural form and spatial layout of the museum blocks were inspired by the first settlements and fortresses that were established in Wielkopolska, the region that was the cradle of Polish statehood. These are buildings of simple, cubic architecture. The lower parts of the cubes will be finished with roughly worked, split stone, which may evoke the memory of the first buildings on Polish soil. In the higher parts, the texture of the material will change, and the elevations of the subsequent storeys will be made of smoothly polished stone, symbolically transporting us to modern times. The stone will shape the visual identity and architectural expression of the museum,” explains architect Szczepan Wroński, founder of the WXCA studio.
Dividing the mass of the museum into several smaller buildings, connected by an underground part, is a testimony to architectural restraint and respect for the historical context of the place. The diversified composition of the buildings opens up a vista of St. Adalbert’s Hill, whose dominant feature remains an 800-year-old church – a living witness to the history of Poznan. The pitched roofs, designed as a “fifth façade”, with their height and slope further emphasise the direction towards the hill, exposing the historic landscape and its significance in the space of memory.
Mock-up:
At the core of the concept of the Museum of the Greater Poland Uprising 1918-1919, created by the WXCA studio, is the conviction that an institution nurturing the memory of a common heritage should at the same time strengthen the sense of community and build a civil society. Therefore, in the centre of the composition, between the museum blocks, an urban square was planned – a contemporary agora, which the architects describe as a ‘face-to-face meeting place’. The square is a reminder of values such as togetherness and cooperation – the foundations of the victorious Wielkopolska Uprising, as mentioned by Ignacy Jan Paderewski in his famous 1918 speech. At the same time, the project’s symbolism, rooted in history, carries a universal message still relevant today: the need for spaces conducive to dialogue, understanding and resilience in the face of contemporary crises – from social polarisation to information chaos caused by disinformation and deepfakes.
The circular square will become a natural meeting place for the people of Poznan and will allow the museum to go outward with its programme, strengthening its bond with the city. In the middle of the square will rise a skylight – the keystone of the underground dome, a symbolic bridge between past and present. It is an architecture of heroism devoid of pathos that combines historical memory with the needs of the present.
As the architect Marta Sękulska-Wrońska, a partner in the WXCA studio, emphasises, the essence of the architecture of remembrance is to build such bridges. Her studio boasts an impressive track record in this area and an internationally distinguished experience in museum design.
Working on the architecture of memorials is an experience that teaches humility towards history and human destiny. In projects such as the Museum – Palmiry Memorial, the permanent exhibition at the Józef Piłsudski Museum in Sulejówek or the museum complex at the Warsaw Citadel with the Museum of Polish History and the Museum of the Polish Army, space becomes a carrier of emotions, not just narrative. Form, light and tactility build a story – often more poignant than words,” confesses architect Marta Sękulska-Wrońska.
In the Museum of the Wielkopolska Uprising 1918-1919 we are looking for a contemporary language that can express heroism without pathos and memory without monumentality. I think of the architecture of remembrance not as a monument, but as a meeting place – between past and present, individual experience and shared identity. It is a space that does not end at the walls, but continues in the way a person experiences it,” Marta Sękulska-Wrońska concludes.
According to the plan, the new museum will open to the public in December 2027.
source: press materials
Read also: Poznań | Museum | History | WXCA | Modernism | Featured | whiteMAD on Instagram
Building design:
