Fotoplastikon Warszawski, Warsaw

Fotoplastikon Warszawski occupies the Hoser townhouse on Aleje Jerozolimskie fifty-one, and the historic fotoplastikon itself is the main exhibit. Rather than projecting a film, it is a stereoscopic theatre using a rotating-image system descended from the Kaiserpanorama. The circular machine has twenty-four fixed viewing ports, where you sit to see paired photographs create an illusion of depth.

Each image remains visible for fifteen seconds, with an illuminated caption above the viewing port, before the programme moves on through forty-eight scenes. Travel and history supply the themes, while recorded music chosen for the subject accompanies the images. Since October nineteen forty-six, this device has worked here in the Hoser townhouse; it is Europe’s longest-running stereoscopic theatre still operating at its original address.

During the German occupation, members of the Polish underground used the Fotoplastikon for covert meetings. In the communist era, its pictures and imported music gave Warsaw residents a rare glimpse beyond Poland. The Warsaw Uprising Museum acquired the machine in December twenty twelve and continues its life here. By twenty twenty-four, the collection had grown beyond ten thousand photographs.