It is intended for people who have no professional contact with the topics of architecture or history of Warsaw, but would like to get to know their city better.

We invite you to lectures from November 2024 to June 2025.

Złota Kurka, Praha bar, McDonalds, cafe at Plac Na Rozdrożu – get to know the most interesting places and interiors in the subjective choice of an active innkeeper.

We will start with a micro-panorama of Warsaw gastronomy, and specifically we will look at places where good cutlets were not always accompanied by the highest quality art. What’s more, there will be a lot of Gierek, a bit of private initiative, a small gastronomy, a night club, a milk bar, and even a disco and a night club.

Cezary Polak

A journalist who has published in, among others, “Gazeta Wyborcza”, “Dziennik”, “Przekrój”, “Tygodnik Powszechny”, “Polityka”, “Wprost”, “Teatr”, “Visegrad Insight” and “Ustach”. He is also a cultural animator and also studied Polish studies and film directing. He is the author of mini-dialogues included in the anthology “Literacki melanż z Pragi” and the originator and organizer of numerous social and cultural initiatives, such as the series “Literatura na peryferiach” and “Latące Muzeum”. Additionally, he hosts his own radio show “Polak Potrafi” on Radio dla Ciebie.

He lives in Grochów, where he founded the Kicia Kocia club-café, which hosts, among others, Warsaw studies lectures. What is more, he was awarded a medal by the mayor of Praga-Południe for his work for the district. He is also the co-author of the book “GRO. Illustrated atlas of architecture of Grochów”.

Horrific living conditions in a ruined city, a pressing need to rebuild primarily residential buildings, and the need to invent new types of housing estates – these were the challenges that Warsaw faced right after World War II.

How did architects cope with this challenge? What did they propose in this short, intense, but strange time between the cataclysm of war and socialist realism with its monumental, decorated buildings? Was the thinking modern or “pre-war”? Was it built of brick or prefabricated elements? Was it possible to implement the plan for “housing for all”?

Katarzyna Uchowicz

Architectural historian, curator. She works at the 20th and 21st Century Architecture Documentation Workshop at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences, as well as at the Inter-Faculty Department of History and Theory of Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. She lectures on the history and theory of 20th century architecture. She deals with 20th century architecture in an interdisciplinary approach, especially the architectural avant-garde and experimental work, forms of documentation and presentation of architecture.

Although they were created to last and commemorate great figures, historical events and ideas that unite people, monuments in Warsaw tend to disappear without a trace. Some of them, for various reasons, we ignore as if they were not there at all. However, there are those whose presence seems obvious and necessary, without which Warsaw would be a different city. This lecture will be about them. What made them survive?

Anna Wrońska

Art historian, editor, journalist, worked at the Museum of the Academy of Fine Arts, the Museum of Warsaw, PWN Scientific Publishing House, ZPR Media Publishing House. Her specialty is architecture and sculpture. She is the author of many articles about architecture, houses and living, and co-author of GRO. An illustrated atlas of Grochów architecture. Since 2021, she has been working as a managing editor at the Architecture Center Foundation.

In the interwar period, cinema was an important institution of culture and entertainment. The films were shown in elegant, specially designed rooms or on a sheet or in the yard.

We ridicule them or worship them. We demolishthem more and more often. Sometimes there are also attempts to include them in the register of monuments. Colorful, crazy, strange – buildings from the 90s rarely leave us indifferent.

But why did they suddenly appear in the Warsaw landscape? What made people start building this way? What did this mean for the architectural community and what for business and the inhabitants of Warsaw? Can this new, colorful style be called postmodern and where did postmodernism come from? And finally, which buildings have stood the test of time?

Anna Cymer

She began to study the history of architecture while still a student. Her master’s thesis concerned the idea of ​​a social estate based on the example of the construction of a Warsaw housing estate in Rakowiec. Following the development of residential architecture, she researched post-war concepts of housing estates until she finally became fascinated with the construction of the People’s Republic of Poland in general – which resulted in the book “Architecture in Poland 1945–1989”.