Contemporary Museum

The Muzeum Współczesne Wrocław is a contemporary art museum that opened in 2011 in a historic high-rise bunker in the western part of Wrocław. The six-story cylindrical structure dates from 1942 and served as an air-raid shelter and field hospital during World War II. Its unusual architecture, with reinforced concrete walls 1.1 meters thick, was meant to disguise the building's true purpose at the time. After a complete renovation, in which the interior walls were exposed and a glass-enclosed floor was added on top, the bunker now houses exhibitions that deliberately reach beyond art itself into social and scientific fields. Visitors experience the site as both an architectural landmark and a cultural meeting place on Strzegomski Square. One striking feature is the 90-ton monument "Pociąg do Nieba" (Train to Heaven), in which a historic wartime locomotive juts almost vertically out of the ground. The facade is also adorned with a mural featuring a poem by the concrete poetry artist Stanisław Dróżdż, which gives the museum a unique identity.