The Art Museum in Łódź is showing its new face. It is going to change from a traditional museum into a thriving culture centre. Is it going to equal other places of this kind which have been on the European market for years? Perhaps, if it skilfully makes use of its assets - a new building on a good location and, first of all, its nationally unique collection.

Why did you decide to move the Art Museum to a new site?

We have been trying to get a new building for a long time now as in the old one no space for exhibition is left. We wanted the unique collection of the 20th-century and contemporary art to be finally displayed so that its real value could be seen.


What will the new facility look like?

The new museum is going to be in a former factory building, on the premises of Manufaktura, from Ogrodowa Street. The building will be adapted for exhibitions, over 3000 m will be allotted for permanent exposition, 600 m – for the presentation of periodic exhibitions. In the building there will be rooms to organize courses, meetings with artists, film screenings, even a bookshop and a café.

Where are you going to get money from?

The project will be financed from the EU Integrated Operation Programme for the Łódź Region, by the Łódź Region Government, and from the Programme Promesa of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage.


Will this ‘new place for art’ become a centre of culture/art? What is its role?

We want the New Museum, whose official name is M/S2 , to become an open place where art is widely available, not locked in museum storerooms. Very rich programme of exhibitions, meetings and courses should make the New Museum a place vibrant with life.

At the moment 5% of the Museum’s collection is on display, will additional 3000 m2 enable showing the whole collection?

The space in the new building will make it possible to show more, but it won’t be the entire collection.


When describing the new facility, you refer to a little town of Bilbao which, owing to the Guggenheim Museum, became a recognizable place of art. Łódź is not a little town, it has a long tradition of being connected with modern art, and so far nothing has resulted from this fact, is it going to change now? How?   

The New Museum stands a chance of becoming a landmark associated with an image of £ód¼. After all, before 1989 the city was widely associated with the Art Museum and its International Collection of Modern Art. The unique collection, attractive exposition and modern art infrastructure can significantly increase the prestige of the city.
In what way will the new building of the Art Museum be different from other museums in Poland? In Warsaw a similar project is being developed, on a scale larger than the one in Łódź.  
The unique collection and unusual history of this place will make the Art Museum different from other museums in Poland.

When the new building is going to be opened?

The new building will be ready on May 31st, 2008; the first projects and the grand opening are planned for the beginning of October 2008.