Muzeum Azji i Pacyfiku, Warszawa

Here, Muzeum Azji i Pacyfiku is Warsaw’s museum devoted solely to the cultures of Asia, Oceania, and Australia. Founded in nineteen seventy-three, it grew from the personal collection of Andrzej Wawrzyniak, a sailor, diplomat, and passionate collector. While posted at Poland’s embassy in Jakarta between nineteen sixty-one and nineteen seventy-one, he gathered Indonesian art and craft: weapons, masks, textiles, sculpture, paintings, household objects, and theatre puppets.

On returning to Poland, he gave the nation a collection of more than three thousand pieces, creating the Museum of the Nusantara Archipelago. Wawrzyniak remained its director and chief curator for life, and the museum later expanded far beyond Indonesia. Its collection now exceeds twenty thousand objects from Asia, Australia, and Oceania.

The museum occupies historic former offices and staff homes of Warsaw’s municipal slaughterhouse. Notice the garden space: its focal point is a replica of Hanoi’s Buddhist One Pillar Pagoda, made by Vietnamese craftspeople for the museum’s anniversary. The grounds also hold a Nepalese temple bell, sculpture, and a wall work inspired by Javanese shadow theatre.