Warsaw. The furniture showroom in Ursynów will turn into a museum warehouse

The building of the former furniture showroom will be transformed into a space for storing large-scale works of art. The National Museum in Warsaw has purchased a property at Puławska Street and intends to create an open studio warehouse for its collections of design and antique furniture.

The new warehouse spaces of the National Museum in Warsaw are located at 436 Puławska Street in Ursynów. The institution purchased the building with the support of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

– Providing new storage spaces for the National Museum in Warsaw is a kind of gesture and shows direction – we care about cultural institutions that have been operating for years and are working great, and whose needs, usually practical, from the point of view of a museum professional, are important to us. For us, not only as the organizer, but for us as the recipients, said the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, Hanna Wróblewska, during Wednesday's press conference.

As she noted, “we are talking about warehouse spaces.” – It may seem that this is nothing spectacular, nothing that the recipients would benefit from, but this is not true. These are warehouses that will primarily provide space for the best collection of industrial design. I am very happy that it will finally have adequate space, and not only this collection, the warehouses will accommodate several important collections, she emphasized.

– What is equally important, studio magazines will be created in these places, so they will not be magazines that we, as the audience, will not have the right to look at. The warehouses will be made available to recipients, museum workers and the public – informed the head of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

The building is intended to accommodate large-scale exhibits

The newly purchased facility previously housed a furniture showroom. – This is one of the favorable circumstances that made it meet the technical requirements, that the building is able to carry heavy furniture and large objects owned by the National Museum in Warsaw – explained Dr. Hab. Agnieszka Lajus, acting director of the institution.

She added that “the basic argument for looking for a warehouse was to ensure the safety of the facilities of the National Museum in Warsaw.” Finding the right facility took several years.

– Our temporary warehouses in Tarczyn do not meet fire and conservation safety requirements. The way these works are stored must certainly be organized completely differently. The second place where we store our collections is the Interior Museum in Otwock Wielki, but it is also only a temporary location for our objects – she noted.

She said that the facility at Puławska was built in 1996 for the needs of printing activities, and in 2021 it was thoroughly renovated for the needs of a furniture showroom.

– It has reinforced ceilings, a ramp and a freight elevator. This is the first freight elevator in the history of the National Museum in Warsaw that is able to lift pianos, litters and sleighs, because such objects and instruments are also in the MNW collection. There is a huge area next to the building, almost 90 parking spaces, and there is also a concept of expanding this building, currently three-story, with a usable area of ​​approximately three thousand two hundred square meters – noted Lajus.

When will the public be able to visit the new warehouse?

This year, the museum plans to carry out design and general construction works that will adapt the facility to the needs of the institution, as well as prepare a design for the arrangement of one floor of the building and the relocation of the collections from the warehouse in Tarczyn. The warehouses will house furniture and industrial design. The cost of purchasing new space is approximately PLN 40 million.

When asked by journalists how long it would take to move the objects to the new warehouse and when the public would be able to see them, the head of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage replied: “we hope that in the second half of 2026 we will start presenting them in partial spaces of this warehouse.”

The largest collection of old design and furniture in Poland

The design collections at the National Museum in Warsaw are the largest collection of Polish applied art and design in Poland, unique in terms of diversity and historical value. It was established in 1978, when, thanks to the efforts of Wanda Telakowska and the support of Stanisław Lorentz, the museum took over the resources of the Institute of Industrial Design.

“Currently, the collection includes over 25,000 objects documenting the history of Polish design from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day. It includes a wide spectrum of objects: fabrics, clothing, furniture, glass, ceramics, metalwork, jewelry, toys and prototypes of industrial machines and devices. Its advantage is there is a rich collection of design drawings and models that enable tracing the creative process – from sketch to implementation. Additionally, the collection contains archival materials, including documents and photographs, which makes it unique an invaluable source of knowledge for researchers, designers and lovers of applied art,” the Museum wrote in its press release.

The furniture collection at the National Museum in Warsaw is the largest collection of old furniture of great artistic and historical value in Poland. Together with other items of artistic crafts, they began to be collected in the museum before World War I. In the interwar period, important examples of European furniture, Polish products and souvenirs of great Poles were acquired.

“Currently, the collection includes over 2,300 artifacts, based on which it is possible to trace the history of European carpentry crafts and furniture production from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the 20th century. The collection includes furniture made in France, England, Germany, Austria, Italy and Spain. Of particular importance is the largest collection of 19th century Warsaw furniture in Poland, numbering over 200 pieces. There are numerous examples of Vilnius furniture from the territory of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Gdańsk, Toruń and Elbląg, as well as other important centers, such as Kraków, Lviv, Kolbuszowa and Poznań. The collection also includes clocks in cabinet cases, keyboard instruments and sleighs. and sedan chairs,” it was written.

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