Museum for aviation and aviation exhibition park in Krakow, Poland
Client: Muzeum Lotnictwa Polskiego
Architecture: Justus Pysall, Berlin
Project team: Justus Pysall, Peter Ruge, Bartlomiej Kisielewski
The idea of flying, the spirit of place, the structure of the historic airfield - the new Museum of Aviation in Krakow takes up these references intellectually and synthesises them into a building.
The old hangars of the former airport Rakowice-Czyzyny set the modular scale for the footprint and the height of the new building. Developed from this basic shape, as if cut out and folded like a paper airplane, a large structure has been generated, with triangular wings made of concrete and yet as light as a wind-vane propeller.
The wings are generously glazed and open in all directions. Their form and arrangement depend on the interior uses.
In the floor plans of the wings, the three offset floor layers generate a spatial continuum of varying insights and outlooks, to focal points within the building and to exhibition areas outside.
The design of the new aviation park links the eight buildings of the museum and the open-air exhibition areas in a joint historical experience. Former view axes and paths are respected, old alleys are completed and spaces towards the airfield and taxiway are defined. Each building exhibits one topic or episode of aviation, with a large base platform extending around it giving spaces for open-air exhibition of the particular themes.
The museum contains more than 150 planes, engines, aviation artefacts, sets of technical construction documents and historical pictures. A special feature is the collection of aircraft from the beginning of aviation, such as the Jatho 1903, the Grade 1909, a Wright Brothers’ model from 1909, and the Etrich Taube from 1911.