The History Meeting House invites you to its newest open-air exhibition, BUILDING A NEW HOME. THE RECONSTRUCTION OF WARSAW 1945–1952. Showcasing rare photographs of Warsaw from the mid-1940s through the mid-1950s, the exhibition is curated by Warsaw scholars Jerzy S. Majewski and Tomasz Markiewicz. The Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera is the event’s main partner.

This fall, the exhibition will be on display in two locations: In September and October, it will be presented outside the Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera as an event accompanying the premiere and subsequent performances of Benjamin Bukowski’s opera THE BEST CITY IN THE WORLD: AN OPERA ABOUT WARSAW, directed by Barbara Wiśniewska, based on the book by Grzegorz Piątek THE BEST CITY IN THE WORLD: WARSAW UNDER RECONSTRUCTION 1944–1949; and from November 4th, the exhibition will be on display on Krakowskie Przedmieście (the Royal Route, near Rev. Jan Twardowski Sq.). The exhibition and the opera are part of the cultural program marking the 80th anniversary of the commencement of Warsaw’s reconstruction, organized by the City of Warsaw.

The extent of the damage to urban infrastructure on Warsaw’s left bank in January 1945 was overwhelming. The gasworks, electrical networks, and transportation were no longer functioning. (…) The water supply and sewage systems were heavily damaged. River and canal pumping stations, key elements of Warsaw’s water and sewage systems, lay in ruins, and the central filtration station was damaged. At the end of 1944, the Germans also blew up Warsaw Central Station and significantly damaged its cross-city tunnel. Restoring the pieces of urban infrastructure crucial in making the city livable was one of the Capital Reconstruction Office’s main priorities, explains Jerzy S. Majewski, co-curator of the exhibition.

The BUILDING A NEW HOME exhibition tells the story of the post-war reconstruction of Poland’s capital. It shows the sheer scale of the city’s destruction and showcases buildings and monuments restored after World War II, as well as those that ended up disappearing from the cityscape during its reconstruction. BUILDING A NEW HOME recalls the political decisions that determined the shape of the Warsaw’s redevelopment (including the decree instituted by leader of communist-ruled Poland, Bolesław Bierut, leading to the state’s takeover of almost all the city’s land) and profiles of the employees of the Capital Reconstruction Office, where all of the planning and design work was concentrated. The plans drawn up by the Capital Reconstruction Office still determine the shape of the city center today: the East–West Route (Trasa W-Z), the Marshal Residential District (MDM), industrial districts, the Old Town, and the Royal Route.

The reconstruction, apart from its glamour, also had its dark sides – for political effect, no expense was spared; tenement houses that had survived the horrors of war were demolished, despite the housing shortage in the decimated city, to realize ridiculous urban planning ideas, a striking example of which is the Józef Stalin Palace of Culture and Science. Private reconstruction was passed over in silence, leaving pleasant streets like Chmielna St. in the heart of Warsaw, from Marszałkowska to Nowy Świat, unscathed. In a different political reality, Warsaw’s cityscape would have been entirely different, probably more human in scale, and in places truly metropolitan, sans the artificial pathos of socialist realism, says Tomasz Markiewicz, exhibition co-curator.

Today, Warsaw’s reconstruction is often criticized; hundreds, even thousands, of burned-out tenement houses were razed, when at least some could have been saved and rebuilt. Warsaw has but a handful of buildings from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, which, before 1944, had set the architectural tone of the entire city. On the other hand, the reconstruction of the city’s Old Town was a thoroughly innovative undertaking, at the time, the largest such project in history. No one had ever rebuilt a city destroyed by war on such a scale before. The decision to rebuild broke with the conservation doctrine in force at the time, which ruled out the restoration of historic buildings. After the war, the Germans, British, Dutch, and Italians rebuilt only selected landmark buildings. In 1980, the reconstructed Old Town of Warsaw was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Curator: Jerzy S. Majewski, Tomasz Markiewicz
Graphic Design: Łukasz Kamieniak
Exhibition Production: Olga Pigłowska
Editing: Marta Markowska
Translation: Nitzan Reisner
Proofing: Anna Kaniewska (Polish),
Preparing Photographs for Print: Tomasz Kubaczyk
Printing: Antare
Visual Identity: Alina Rybacka
PR: Marianna Januszewicz, Maja Raczyńska, Marta Rogowska, Nadzieja Rudzka, Kaja Stępkowska

In addition to the outdoor exhibition, as part of the BUILDING A NEW HOME program marking the 80th anniversary of the commencement of the reconstruction of Warsaw, the History Meeting House (Dom Spotkań z Historią, DSH) has several events that draw on both primary sources and substantive findings concerning the reconstruction of Warsaw, which have been made public over the last dozen or so years, introducing previously unknown audiovisual materials including testimonies from the DSH Oral History Archive, as well as documentary photographs by, among others, Edward Falkowski, Zbyszko Siemaszko, Zdzisław Wdowiński, and Karol Pęcherski.

Selected planned events:

• The WARSAW REBORN. REPORTAGE PHOTOGRAPHY 1945–1949 temporary exhibition in the History Meeting House’s main gallery (September 2025-February 2026), presenting photographs from the Polish Press Agency archives. ekspozycja prezentuje wybór zdjęć z zasobów Polskiej Agencji Prasowej. A selection of these photographs will also be presented at the Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera in September and October.
• New, extended editions of two albums: BUILDING A NEW HOME. THE RECONSTRUCTION OF WARSAW IN 1945–1952 and WARSAW REBORN. REPORTAGE PHOTOGRAPHY 1945–1949 (both will be published this September).
• BUILDING A NEW HOME: UNKNOWN STORIES guided tours with leading Warsaw experts Jerzy S. Majewski and Tomasz Markiewicz, highlighting the most interesting, lesser-known locations related to the reconstruction of the city (July through September).
• The THURSDAYS WITH THE RECONSTRUCTION OF WARSAW online series, running from March to December 2025, is available on History Meeting House’s social media channels.

Deputy Director Piotr Jakubowski is the main coordinator of the History Meeting House’s BUILDING A NEW HOME program. It is part of the cultural program initiated and financed by the City of Warsaw to mark the 80th anniversary of the commencement of the capital’s reconstruction. For more information, visit: dsh.waw.pl, kultura.um.warszawa.pl.

THE BEST CITY IN THE WORLD: AN OPERA ABOUT WARSAW

An opera in 16 acts

The opera, the flagship event commemorating the 80th anniversary of the commencement of Warsaw’s reconstruction, was inspired by Grzegorz Piątek’s book THE BEST CITY IN THE WORLD: WARSAW UNDER RECONSTRUCTION, 1944–1949. It is a panorama of the first post-war years of an extraordinary undertaking that brought people together regardless of their views and despite the ravages of war. Librettist Beniamin Bukowski created a story that draws on sources from the era: political speeches, technical urban planning jargon, and colloquial street language. However, it is not a historical document, but rather a story of complex human destinies intertwining.

Libretto: Beniamin Bukowski based on the book THE BEST CITY IN THE WORLD: WARSAW UNDER RECONSTRUCTION 1944–1949
Conductor: Bassem Akiki
Director: Barbara Wiśniewska
Music: Cezary Duchnowski
Set Design: Natalia Kitamikado
Costumes: Emil Wysocki
Choreography: Maćko Prusak
Screenplay: Marcin Cecko
Cast: Joanna Freszel (journalist), Filip Kosior (guide), Agata Zubel (architect), Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera Choir, Sinfonia Varsovia, the Władysław Skoraczewski Artos Children’s Choir
World Premiere: September 19th, 2025, Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera
Co-producer: Sinfonia Varsovia

Sinfonia Varsovia commissioned the opera with financial support from the City of Warsaw. The premiere of the opera on September 19th, 2025, will be the opening event of the 68th Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary Music.

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In all of these projects, the organizers intend to capture the phenomenon of the vitality of the citizens of Warsaw, thanks to whom the capital, despite the devastating effects of war, was reborn with such force. It is precisely this rebirth of the city after World War II that constitutes an intrinsic element of Warsaw’s identity today.