WXCA wins architectural competition in Poznań

The Association of Polish Architects and the Poznań Academy of Music announced an architectural competition for the new Ignacy Jan Paderewski Academy of Music. The renowned Polish architecture firm WXCA has now won first prize: The design has a modern, sculptural silhouette that respects traditional architectural expressions while alluding to the 19th century urban environment.

The Polish politician, pianist and composer Ignacy Jan Paderewski lived from 1860 to 1941. Among other things, he was Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Poland and signed the Treaty of Versailles for his country in 1919. The new facility in Poznań is named after him and is intended to serve cultural, scientific and educational purposes.

The Ignacy Jan Paderewski Academy of Music will serve as a cultural and educational center for both students and local residents. It will have academic rooms, a regional music center and an opera and theater hall. A playhouse, a performance stage, a chamber hall, an ambient hall, recording studios and ballet and drama studios are also planned.

The award-winning proposal by Studio WXCA has a timeless structure that will serve as a medium between the past and the contemporary spirit of the city of Poznań. The new music academy will blend harmoniously into the traditional architecture of the surrounding area, while at the same time meeting the modern needs of the city.

The architects at WXCA aimed to design a building that would serve as a contemporary spatial landmark in the midst of a traditional urban development. To achieve this, the building continues the historical orientation of the street, but is divided into smaller functional blocks of different heights. This gives the composition an almost musical dynamic. The gaps between the blocks are intended to incorporate the surroundings and invite pedestrians into the interior of the academy.

The transition from a compact arrangement in the city center to a more open composition blurs the boundary between inside and outside. In this way, the architects emphasize the public use of the building. At the crossroads, the Ignacy Jan Paderewski Music Academy has a dominant effect and acts as a spatial marker to emphasize the presence of the academy in the city. However, the individual blocks are based on the adjacent 19th-century buildings and are restrained in design to evoke traditional townhouses.

The architects envisage various niches and openings along the building to integrate the academy even better into its surroundings. A green roof is intended to provide a quiet meeting place for students and teaching staff and serve as an inviting retreat. Glass canopies and a green square offer opportunities to observe daily life at the music academy. Cultural events for the neighborhood are to take place in the evenings. In this way, the academy will fulfill its role as a public institution that is open to the city.

The shape of the building reflects its internal functional division, with academic life revolving around a centrally located opera and theater hall equipped with state-of-the-art stage technology. This space serves both educational and social functions and forms the heart of the entire complex. In order to meet the different needs of the users, the public, educational and technical spaces are divided into zones with different access points to ensure independent operation.

The Ignacy Jan Paderewski Academy of Music, which organized the competition together with the Association of Polish Architects, is already 104 years old. It announced the results of the competition in summer 2024. These were the winners:

1. 1st prize: WXCA, Warsaw
2. Prize: PL.architekci, Poznań
3. Prize: PROLOG, Wrocław (Breslau)

Honorable mention: CDF Architekci, Poznań

Honorable mention: 22Architekci, Poznań

The first prize is endowed with 100,000 Polish złoty (PLN; approx. 24,000 euros) and an invitation to contract negotiations on the development of the design documentation, while the second prize is awarded PLN 70,000, the third prize PLN 50,000 and the two honorable mentions PLN 30,000.

Participants in the competition, which was announced in November 2023, were invited to design a new cultural and educational center. This was to be aimed at both students and the residents of Poznań.

The competition jury justified the award of first prize with the following points:

• Skillful integration into the complex urban context
• The design of the façade on the Grunwaldzka and Skryta Street side in the form of sculptural blocks that relate to the scale of the existing buildings
• A functionally and spatially coherent dominant feature on the Grunwaldzka and Matejki Streets side
• Correctly placed and solved technology of the performance halls and stage service
• Well-designed delivery area and backstage facilities for artists
• A functional arrangement of the rooms with regard to the acoustic requirements
• The best response to the detailed acoustic and technical guidelines
• Flexible and activating use of internal communication
• Effective use of natural light in compact buildings

WXCA is a renowned Polish architectural firm specializing in projects for public spaces and public institutions, including cultural institutions. The office was nominated for the Mies van der Rohe Award for the designs of the Memorial Museum in Palmiry and the European Center for Geological Education in Chęciny. WXCA was also responsible for the design of the famous Polish pavilion at Expo 2020 in Dubai and the museum complex in Warsaw, which houses the Polish History Museum and the Museum of the Polish Army. In 2023, WXCA won the international architecture and urban design competition for the concept of the reconstruction of the Saxon Royal Palace in Warsaw, which was destroyed during the Second World War.

Read more: A new cultural space, the Shakespeare Theater, has also been created in Gdansk in the recent past.