DSH invites you to a new outdoor exhibition entitled "We Are Building a New Home. The Reconstruction of Warsaw 1945–1952", presenting unique photographs of Warsaw from the second half of the 1940s and the first half of the 1950s. The curators are Varsavianists Jerzy S. Majewski and Tomasz Markiewicz, and the project partner is the Grand Theatre – National Opera. 🏛️ WE ARE BUILDING A NEW HOME. THE RECONSTRUCTION OF WARSAW 1945–1952 The outdoor exhibition is presented as part of the celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the beginning of Warsaw's reconstruction. 📅 Dates and locations: - 19.09–31.10.2025 Grand Theatre – National Opera building (Pl. Teatralny 1, from Moliera Street) - 4–22.11.2025 Krakowskie Przedmieście (by the square of Fr. Jan Twardowski) - 11–31.12.2025 Starzyński Hall in the Palace of Culture and Science (pl. Defilad 1, Warsaw) We are pleased to announce that the "We Are Building a New Home" exhibition will be hosted in yet another location! The DSH outdoor exhibition and the opera are part of the program prepared for the 80th anniversary of the beginning of Warsaw's reconstruction, organized by the City of Warsaw. The photographs come from the State Archive of the Capital City of Warsaw. The degree of devastation of urban infrastructure in the left-bank part of Warsaw in January 1945 was overwhelming. The gasworks, electrical networks, and public transport were not functioning. Water supply and sewage systems were damaged. Blown-up river and canal pumping stations, key elements of Warsaw's water and sewage system, lay in ruins, and the central filtration station was damaged. At the end of 1944, the Germans also blew up the Main Railway Station, and the cross-city line tunnel suffered significant damage. Restoring the essential elements of urban infrastructure was one of the priorities for the Bureau for the Reconstruction of the Capital – says exhibition co-author Jerzy S. Majewski. The "WE ARE BUILDING A NEW HOME" exhibition is dedicated to the post-war reconstruction of the capital. It shows the scale of destruction and presents monuments restored after World War II, as well as those that disappeared from the city's landscape during its reconstruction. The exhibition recalls political decisions that determined the shape of Warsaw's reconstruction and redevelopment (including Bierut's decree, which led to the state taking over almost all land in the city) and the profiles of people employed at the Bureau for the Reconstruction of the Capital, where planning and design work was concentrated. The plans prepared at the Bureau still decisively shape the urban layout of the city center: the W-Z Route, MDM, industrial districts, as well as the Old Town and Royal Route. Reconstruction, besides its highlights, had its shadows – for political effect, costs were disregarded; surviving tenement houses were demolished despite the housing shortage in the ruined city, to realize insane urban visions, a glaring example of which is the Palace of Culture and Science named after Joseph Stalin. Private reconstruction, thanks to which such pleasant nooks as Chmielna Street from Marszałkowska to Nowy Świat survived in the city center, was ignored. In different political circumstances, the face of the capital would have been different, probably more human-scaled and, in places, truly metropolitan, without the artificial pathos of socialist realism – says exhibition co-author Tomasz Markiewicz. Today, the reconstruction of Warsaw is often criticized; hundreds or even thousands of burned-out tenement houses were demolished, some of which could have been rebuilt. Few buildings erected at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries remain, which defined the architectural character of the city before its destruction in 1944. At the same time, the reconstruction of the historic quarter of the capital was a thoroughly innovative undertaking, carried out for the first time on such a scale in history. No one had ever rebuilt a war-destroyed city to such an extent. The decision to rebuild broke the then prevailing conservation doctrine, which excluded the reconstruction of monuments. After the war, the Germans, English, Dutch, and Italians rebuilt only individual historic buildings. In 1980, the reconstructed Warsaw Old Town was inscribed on the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List. Curators: Jerzy S. Majewski, Tomasz Markiewicz Graphic design: Łukasz Kamieniak Exhibition production: Olga Pigłowska Editing: Marta Markowska Translation: Nitzan Reisner Proofreading: Anna Kaniewska (Polish), Adam Żuławski (English) Photo preparation for print: Tomasz Kubaczyk Printing: Antare Exhibition visual identity design: Alina Rybacka Promotion: Marianna Januszewicz, Maja Raczyńska, Marta Rogowska, Nadzieja Rudzka, Kaja Stępkowska The exhibition is accompanied by a book by Jerzy S. Majewski and Tomasz Markiewicz: "We Are Building a New Home. The Reconstruction of Warsaw in 1945–1952". The publication is available from September 25, 2025, at the DSH Bookstore (ul. Karowa 20, Warsaw) and online: https://ksiegarnia.dsh.waw.pl "We Are Building a New Home. The Reconstruction of Warsaw in 1945–1952" is the second, expanded and supplemented edition of the publication devoted to the reconstruction of Warsaw in the first years after World War II. The richly illustrated book contains about 170 photographs, documents, and illustrations documenting the urban and architectural fate of the capital over the key seven post-war years. The illustrative material of the bilingual Polish-English publication comes, among others, from the Polish Press Agency, FORUM Polish Photographers Agency, resources of the State Archive in Warsaw, and private archives. The authors of the photos include Edward Falkowski, Karol Pęcherski, Zbyszko Siemaszko, and Zdzisław Wdowiński. The book by Jerzy S. Majewski and Tomasz Markiewicz was published in two language versions, Polish and English. The introduction to the book reads: "The post-war reconstruction of Warsaw defies unequivocal assessment. On the one hand, in accordance with the externally imposed ideology, an attempt was made to reconstruct the capital as a model socialist city. Land was municipalized and later nationalized, private initiative and the bourgeoisie were suppressed, and many preserved tenement houses were demolished (...) On the other hand, for the first time in human history, such a faithful reconstruction of not just individual monuments but entire fragments of the city was undertaken: along the Royal Route and within the Old and New Town. The pioneering and unique character of this reconstruction was recognized by the international community as early as 1980, when Warsaw's Old Town was inscribed on the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List. This album, based on two exhibitions presented by the History Meeting House in 2011 and 2025, aims to show how extraordinary, complex, and full of contradictions the reconstruction of left-bank Warsaw was." Publication partners: State Archive in Warsaw, Grand Theatre – National Opera Alongside the outdoor exhibition, as part of the WE ARE BUILDING A NEW HOME program dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the beginning of Warsaw's reconstruction, DSH is implementing other projects, recalling source testimonies that have entered the public space in recent years, especially unique audiovisual materials, including testimonies from the DSH Oral History Archive and reportage photographs by authors such as Edward Falkowski, Zbyszko Siemaszko, Zdzisław Wdowiński, and Karol Pęcherski. Among the mentioned initiatives are: - Temporary exhibition in the main DSH gallery "WARSAW ANEW. Reportage Photographs 1945-1949" (September 2025–February 2026); the exhibition presents a selection of photos from the Polish Press Agency's resources. Some of these photographs will also be presented in the halls of the Grand Theatre – National Opera at the turn of September and October. - New editions of two albums: "We Are Building a New Home. The Reconstruction of Warsaw in 1945–1952" and "Warsaw Anew. Reportage Photographs 1945-1949" (both titles will be released in mid-September this year). - City walks with Jerzy S. Majewski and Tomasz Markiewicz along the most interesting, lesser-known places in the capital related to the city's reconstruction in the series "We Are Building a New Home – Unknown Stories" (July–September). - Multimedia series "Thursdays with the Reconstruction of Warsaw", carried out from March to December 2025 on DSH social media. The substantive coordinator of the WE ARE BUILDING A NEW HOME program is Piotr Jakubowski, deputy director of DSH. The program is part of the celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the capital's reconstruction, initiated and financed by the City of Warsaw. Detailed information: https://dsh.waw.pl https://kultura.um.warszawa.pl THE BEST CITY IN THE WORLD. AN OPERA ABOUT WARSAW Opera in 16 scenes This is the flagship project as part of the celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the beginning of Warsaw's reconstruction. The inspiration for the creation of the performance was Grzegorz Piątek's book "The Best City in the World. Warsaw in Reconstruction 1944–1949", which is a panorama of the first post-war years of an extraordinary undertaking that united people regardless of views and in defiance of the ravages of war. Librettist Beniamin Bukowski created a story drawing from period sources: political speeches, the technical jargon of urban planning, and the everyday language of the street. However, it is not a historical chronicle, but a tale of intertwining, complex human fates. Libretto: Beniamin Bukowski based on the book "The Best City in the World. Warsaw in Reconstruction 1944–1949" by Grzegorz Piątek Conductor: Bassem Akiki Director: Barbara Wiśniewska Music: Cezary Duchnowski Set design: Natalia Kitamikado Costumes: Emil Wysocki Choreography: Maćko Prusak Dramaturgy: Marcin Cecko Cast: Joanna Freszel (journalist), Filip Kosior (guide), Agata Zubel (architect), Choir of the Grand Theatre – National Opera, Sinfonia Varsovia, Children's Choir "Artos" named after Władysław Skoraczewski 📅 World premiere: 19.09.2025, Grand Theatre – National Opera Co-producer: Sinfonia Varsovia The opera was commissioned by Sinfonia Varsovia thanks to financial support from the City of Warsaw. The presentation of the opera on September 19, 2025, inaugurates the 68th International Festival of Contemporary Music Warsaw Autumn. The intention of all the presented projects is to capture the phenomenon of the vitality of Warsaw's residents, thanks to whom the capital, in defiance of criminal wartime verdicts, was reborn with such strength. Today, the city's rebirth after World War II constitutes a fundamental element of Warsaw's identity.
