Hydropolis, Wrocław

Hydropolis begins with an unexpected setting: the exhibition occupies a nineteenth-century underground reservoir built in Neo-Gothic form. Beneath the grass-covered roof lies a space of four thousand six hundred square metres, once hidden under earth as part of Wrocław’s waterworks. By 1905, after thousands of tonnes of sand and gravel had been removed, this former filter held twelve million litres of clean water for the city.

The reservoir remained in service until 2011. It had survived wartime damage in 1945 and was inundated during the great flood of 1997; then, after restoration, it reopened as Hydropolis in December 2015. The old engineering shell now frames an educational exhibition dedicated entirely to water, using interactive displays, models and multimedia.

Inside, seven themed areas range from the deep ocean to water in the city. You can enter a full-scale replica of the Trieste bathyscaphe, the craft that first reached Earth’s deepest point, and encounter a water printer stretching forty-six and a half metres. This is one of very few water-focused centres of its kind anywhere in the world, and the only one in Poland.