The New Theatre in Warsaw

1st award at an international competition for an architectural and urban concept, April 2009.

Authors: Ph.D. Arch. Marek Kozień, Ph.D. Arch. Magdalena Kozień-Woźniak, M.Sc. Arch. Katarzyna Kozień-Kornecka.

Cooperation: M.Sc. Arch. Beata Tokarska, M.Sc. Arch. Magdalena Habrat-Rączka, M.Sc. Arch. Jakub Kornecki, M.Sc. Arch. Marcin Gierbienis, M.Sc. Arch. Michał Kornacki, M.Sc. Arch. Michał Rączka, M.Sc. Arch. Przemysław Kusior.

Orderer: The New Theatre, Warsaw.

Plot area: 8 920 m².
Net area: 10 158 00 m².
Theatrical hall: 450 seats.

A concept with unique expressiveness, based upon three elementary decisions. Firstly, respecting the historic hall and remaining it untouched. Secondly, free landscape shaping in the form of an open, attractive and multipurpose public space. Thirdly, complementing the whole with a levitating, dominating container bridge with a light, modern construction, appearing behind the semitransparent facades, whose gable wall, taking shape in the frontage of Madalińskiego St., becomes a media macro-screen.

The Jury's opinion:
"In this manner, a place comes into existence where Memory, Nature and Contemporariness jointly create a harmonious complex. Owing to its undemonstrative simplicity, it is free from rhetoric and responds to the present situation of the world. It makes an event in the scale of Mokotów and Warsaw as well as a proper frame for the international dimension of the theatre whose voice – full of dramatic tensions – grows beyond its cosy aura and requires a recognizable sign with a compact and strong expression. We must emphasize using the entire space of the historic hall for the flexibly shaped complex of the stage and the auditorium. In this way, its interior comes to life and becomes the heart of this layout in accordance with the symbolical explanation of the choice of the place expressed in the form of preference under the conditions of the competition."