Building on Nadwiślańska Street

Cricoteka’s headquarters is a two-building complex – a former power plant and a modern structure. The complex was opened in 2014.

The historic building housed a municipal power plant from 1900. After its closure, the place had several functions, including a sleeping and bathing home for the homeless and a medical clinic. Currently, the former power plant building houses Cricoteka’s offices, an archive, and a theatre, while the new part offers an exhibition space, an educational space, and a café. The buildings are connected by an underground hallway.

The architectural design of the new building is a reference to Tadeusz Kantor’s drawing “Man and Table”. The shape of the building is designed to resemble a table and refer to several crucial ideas of Tadeusz Kantor: packaging, emballage, and monuments of impossible architecture. The concept by IQ2 Konsorcjum (Wizja Sp. z o.o.- Stanisław Deńko, nsMoonStudio Sp. z o.o.- Piotr Nawara, Agnieszka Szultk, Kraków) has received awards for its ambitious attempt to build a public space that is both a stage and an audience – a place of constant performance where, just like in the Kantor Theatre, the boundaries between actor and viewer are eliminated. The work is clearly inspired by Kantor’s artistic concepts, especially the idea of emballage and the art of conflict and “tension”, breaking stereotypes and causing unusual clashes of forms and content.