Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej, Warszawa

Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej is Warsaw’s museum of modern and contemporary art, housed in a new building by Thomas Phifer and Partners. Its public glazed ground level contains exhibition, learning, and social spaces, while the collection connects Polish art with an international conversation across several art forms.

Before you is Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej, Warsaw’s museum devoted to art of the modern era and the present day. The institution begins its life in two thousand five, and Joanna Mytkowska has led it since two thousand seven. Its new home on Marszałkowska Street opens in October two thousand twenty-four, after years spent using temporary venues elsewhere in Warsaw.

The building comes from the New York practice Thomas Phifer and Partners. Its pale concrete outer skin uses a suspended facade system, a technique introduced here for the first time in Poland and in Europe. The ground level is designed as an outward-facing public interior: behind the glazing are a foyer, an auditorium, learning spaces, a temporary-exhibition gallery, a shop, and a café.

Below ground, the museum includes a cinema seating a hundred and fifty people, along with conservation workshops and art storage. Inside, the collection places Polish art from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in dialogue with work from beyond Poland, spanning visual art, film, theatre, and music.