The new main building of the Polish Aviation Museum in Krakow combines symbolic references to flight and aviation history. The three-winged concrete structure creates three interior and exterior spaces around open-air patios. Designed to avoid dominating existing museum buildings while allowing visibility between areas, the transparent building houses exhibition spaces that provide views of the former runway and parked aircraft.

1. Poland Aviation Museum- Poland

2. Poland Aviation Museum- Poland
 The new main building of the Polish
Aviation Museum in Krakow offers a
symbolic and attractive combination of
virtually all the symbolisms associated with
the museum, including the idea of flying,
the atmosphere and structure of an airfield
and a passion for the history of technology.
 Architects: Pysall Ruge Architekten with
Bartlomiej Kisielewski
 Project: Polish Aviation Museum
 Location:Krakow, Poland
 Client: Muzeum Lotnictwa Polskiego w
Krakowie
 Project initiator and main co-founder:
Samorząd Województwa
Małopolskiego(Regional Authorities of
Malopolska)
 Software used: Vectorworks (architectural
drawings) and AutoCAD (M&E drawings)

3. SITE PLAN
 A square base was adopted for the design
that corresponded to the size of a historic
hangar from 1929 located at the center of
the Museum grounds.
 The square 62.5 x 62.5 m concrete
platform served as a base for the main
building’s three wings designed so as to
form patios opening up in three directions:
to the southern approach to the museum,
 to the future Aviation Park and towards the
existing museum buildings. By having its
bulky form broken up into three wings the
new building successfully avoids
dominating the existing facilities, while its
transparency allows various components
of the environment to ‘see’ each other

4. Multifunctional Room on the 1st Floor
 Architect / General planner: Pysall.Ruge
Architekten with Bartlomiej Kisielewski
 Design Team: Justus Pysall, Peter Ruge,
Bartłomiej Kisielewski, Katarzyna Ratajczak,
Mateusz Rataj, Alicja Kępka-Guerrero
 Structural and M&E Services: Arup International
– Kraków
 Landscape Architect: ST raum a – Berlin
 Photographies: Jakub Pierzchała
 Location: al. Jana Pawła II 39, 30-969 Kraków,
Polska
 Park Area: 6,19 ha
 Net Floor Area of the Building: 3 378 m2
 Gross Floor Area of the Building: 4 504 m2
 Building Volume: 23 250 m3
 Construction Cost: 13 million Euro (including
Aviation Park) :
 Financed by : 4 million Euro – Regional
Government of Malopolska ; 9 million Euro – EU
founds
 International Architectural competition: 1st Prize,
2005
 Construction: 2008 – 2010
 Opening Date: 18th September 2010

5. SPATIAL AND ARCHITECTURAL CONCEPT
 The architecture of the building
offers modern design solutions and
stands out in its environment but
maintains respect for the
surrounding landscape. The single-
piece building has been carefully
shaped to create three internal and
three external spaces. The form-
factor brings associations of a huge
fan or propeller.
 1 - The great war anticraft museum
2 - Main exhibition hangar 3 - The
aero engines exhibition 4 - History
panel 5 - The open-air exhibition 6 -
The east wing exhibition 7 -
Aviation heritage cultural park 8 -
Museum main building 9 – Runway

6. EXTTERIOR AND INTERIOR VIEW
 The spacious glazed interior opens
out freely in all directions. The
reception area faces the street, while
the library and office windows
overlook the park to the west. The
exhibition hall finds harmony with an
undeveloped area in front of it and
offers an unobstructed view of the
former runway and of airplanes
parked outside. The subdued colors
of the walls and the floor in the
northern wing provide an elegant
background to the collection. The
airplanes seem to be ready for take-
off and do not look like mere exhibits.
 Natural and raw-looking materials were
selected for the building to provide
contrast to the surrounding greenery.
The light and the colorful surroundings
will complement the interior spaces.
 The outer shell defining the building
shape is made of architectural concrete,
which has been left exposed both on the
inside and outside. Anodized aluminum
was proposed as a finishing material on
some of the walls and stairwell details.
This material was consistently repeated
in components of the exhibition furniture.
The ground floor was made of integrally
colored high-load concrete.

7. ILLUMINATION AND HVAC DESIGN AND SYSTEM
 Much effort went into the illumination
and lighting design. A complete
illumination design for each internal
space uses lights placed on the floor,
walls and under the ceiling to
underscore the building’s unorthodox
geometry.
 - The designers aimed to create an energy-
efficient building (including heating, ventilation
and lighting) that would use local energy
resources and would meet the project’s
budgetary constraints.
 -Two temperature zones were designed. The
two 10-metre-high exhibition wings constitute
the lower temperature zone. The west wing
devoted to the study, conference and office
functions is kept warmer. In summer, both
zones can be interconnected by opening the
dividing walls. This division into ‘climate
zones’ considerably improved the building’s
energy efficiency.
 -The abundance of natural light penetrating
deep into the building minimizes the
requirement for artificial light during working
hours.