It was the Swiss architect Christian Keres, whose project the jury preferred 109 other options. The second place was taken by the Polish bureau Szaroszyk & Rycerski, and the third - by WW Architekten, also from Switzerland. Among the awarded honorable mentions was Kengo Kuma, who participated in the competition together with the Poles "K. Ingarden, J. Evy - Architekci".
According to the organizers of the competition, the new museum is the first institution of its kind in Warsaw, and is intended to bridge the gap that exists between the Polish artists currently working and the public, and to attract up to 1 million visitors annually. And from an urban planning point of view, the new building should become a new semantic point in the city center, an alternative to the 230-meter Palace of Science and Culture, built in the 1950s.
Keres's project is based precisely on this opposition: the museum, in contrast to the richly decorated monumental skyscraper of the Soviet architect L. V. Rudnev, is characterized by the simplicity of forms, the active use of glazing, the openness of the interior to the space of the city. The new building does not try to adapt to the style of Stalinist architecture in which this part of the center of Warsaw is built up, but offers an alternative version of the formal solution, which in this context serves as a symbol of freedom and a look into the future. The architect based his work not only on the Western version of modernism, but also used Polish buildings of the late 1950s-1960s, which are a wonderful national version of this trend in the architecture of the 20th century.
The museum building is due to open in 2010 at Defilad (Parade) Square, one of the largest in Europe. To make room for its construction, it is planned to demolish several buildings there. In plan, the museum resembles the Latin L, and consists of three floors. The number of supports in its interior decreases with increasing height. This allows for maximum flexibility in the layout of the exhibition spaces (total area - 10,000 sq. M.) Located on the upper tier. For each new exposition, it will be possible to create a new series of halls with different degrees of illumination, with different plans and sizes.
The second floor will house the main lobby, library, cafe, as well as administration premises and an auditorium. A front staircase will lead there from street level, and the first floor itself will be occupied by retail and office space and will play the role of a kind of "pedestal" for the museum itself.
Despite the “successful” outcome of the international competition for the project of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, there was a moment in the process of its holding when it could become no less infamous than the competition for the Gazprom City project.
Initially, the competition was held according to the internal rules established in Poland. Some of their demands made it almost impossible for foreign architects to participate in it, so many members of the international jury, including the director of the Tate Gallery Sir Nicholas Serota and the director of the London Design Museum, the theorist of architecture Dejan Sudjik, resigned in protest. As a result, the organizers were forced to simplify the participation procedure and conduct a “second edition” of the competition.
