Płock Municipal Gallery of Art

The new headquarters of the Płock Gallery of Art (PGS) is a building open to inhabitants and guests. It is integrated with the urban framework and city system of public spaces. the building of the gallery is open to regular visitors of exhibitions and people rarely interested in art

Public space. Public space. The structure of the Płock’s center quarters is interrupted and discontinuous. Numerous openings in the frontages give an insight into semi-private quarter quarters . Over the years, this has allowed the development of a characteristic system of pedestrian shortcuts, transitions of quarters. They are the value and potential that we want to use in our project: first, as a pretext to create a small square before entering the Gallery, and secondly – to open two crossings between the streets, leading through the Gallery’s lobby.

The entrance square in front of the gallery is a meeting place for the gallery visitors or the starting point of the Gallery’s activities around the city. The seat located on a wide ledge of the corner window encourages you to stop and look inside. A similar function has the old entrance to the building: turned into an interior glazed bay window, it allows passers-by to spontaneously “enter” the exhibition without having to enter the building.

The entrance hall connects two PGS buildings: Tenement house and Outbuilding. It is a multifunctional space surrounding a centrally located open patio. Iit gives the possibility of various use depending on the needs of users : an extension of the exhibition space, conferences, workshops, cafes. The opening of the entrance hall to the inner courtyard of the quarter enables pedestrian traffic across the quarter – through the gates of the tenements – towards the Market Square.

Patio – is a garden located in the central part of the establishment. It is an attractive resting place, occasionally used for workshops, vernissages, concerts and exhibitions. Patio can operate independently of the Gallery.

Architecture. Due to the downtown context and the scale of the surrounding buildings, the new headquarters of PGS is rather a complex of buildings than one building referring to a typical 19th-century building.

A building as an exhibit. The historic tenement house from 1870 becomes the next largest exhibi object in the Gallery’s collection. Inside there are exhibition halls. This is a strategic decision: art becomes visible and available from the street. The upper and lower levels of exposure are connected by a staircase added from the outside to the top wall of the tenement house. The blind wall becomes its new facade.

The exhibition inside the Exhibit. The exhibition rooms in the historic tenement house constitute a context, a starting point for every curator’s concept. PGS gains a modern, flexible space that meets contemporary standards. Thanks to the constant presence of the historical background (the original interiors of the building), the exhibition space is the reverse of the anonymous white box space.