The Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, with its more than 4,2 thousand sq m floorspace, is going to be the venue of one of the most impressive exhibitions in Poland. Comprised of 8 galleries, this fully multimedia-fitted and narrative display is to become the focal point of the capital’s museum. In charge of its design and completion is Nizio Design International, a studio with expertise in developing designs of cultural facilities and museum spaces.

The construction of the main exhibition in the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw has entered its most important and most intensive  phase. Five months after their start, the on-site installation works have reached the halfway point. For the time being the display has been installed in three galleries and what so far had only been known from architectural plans, drawings, and visualisations was for the first time ever shown to the public during a special press conference “Exhibition under construction” held on 5 February, 2014.

First Encounters (Middle Ages) gallery.  The unique method of creating illustrations – projection on the wall creates basis for the painting (detail).Photo by Magda Starowieyska / Museum of the History of Polish Jews

From an onlooker’s point of view the challenge to complete the exhibition may appear to be easy, but from the perspective of its architects and builders it surely is not. We are building the museum’s narrative from 2 thousand elements. We have prepared them outside the museum and are now putting them together like Lego blocks – says Miroslaw Nizio, owner of Nizio Design International, the studio that has designed and is now building the exhibition. The display, arranged in chronological order, shows the history of the Jewish community in Poland. The museum space will feature scarce surviving historical exhibits, but these will be surrounded by a narrative exhibition relying on the meticulously prepared and accurately built scenography with nearly 200 interactive multimedia stations. The galleries will display copies of old objects, fragments of historical chronicles and memoirs, as well as specially designed handmade furniture and showcases. The walls of the rooms will be covered with large format refined prints and handmade paintings with the overall surface of 290 sq m. The structures to support the scenographic compositions have already been built in all the galleries.

The gallery dedicated to the Middle Ages and titled “First Encounters” now features conservator-made mouldings and frescos inspired by historical iconography. Soon it will also display medieval matzevahs, i.e.  tombstones, which make unique museum exhibits. The reading of the inscriptions on the matzevahs will be facilitated by multimedia descriptions. The “Paradisus Iudaeorum” gallery, which presents the 16^th and 17^th c. history of Jews on Polish soil, will accommodate a massive interactive model of Krakow’s Kazimierz district. Then, the “Town” gallery will display  reconstructed spaces of a house, church, and inn. Already in place is a copy of the imposingly-sized roof of the Gwozdziec synagogue with a reconstructed bimah, i.e. a platform for reading the Torah, placed under it.

Paradisus Iudaeorum (16th and 17th century) gallery. Reconstruction of the printing machine from 17th century.Photo by Magda Starowieyska / Museum of the History of Polish Jews

The Museum of the History of Polish Jews and the construction of its main exhibition is an enormous and highly complex undertaking that involves a whole bunch of experts in a variety of fields – historians, sociologists, architects, artists, designers, and builders of the scenography, graphic elements, models and the multimedia. It was their ideas that informed the construction of the objects which viewers will also be able to see in the museum’s other galleries: “Forest”, “Challenges of Modernity”, “Street”, “Holocaust” and “Post-war Years”. The construction and exhibits installation works in the museum  will continue until the end of June. The Museum of the History of Polish Jews is scheduled to open up on 28 October, 2014.

Paradisus Iudaeorum (16th and 17th century) gallery. Paintings from the Pinczow synagogue, one of the place where  representatives of Jewish communities gathered for the The Council of Four Lands.Photo by Magda Starowieyska / Museum of the History of Polish Jews

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