Teamwork Is a Necessity of Our Times: Artistic and Research Unit (ZAB) Exhibition, Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts

At the Czapski Palace, the Museum of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw shows several hundred objects from the output of the Artistic and Research Unit (Zakłady Artystyczno-Badawcze, ZAB), an experimental unit of the Warsaw Academy whose projects gave the capital, among other things, the Warszawianka sports complex and the interiors of Warszawa Śródmieście station. The exhibition runs 15 October 2026 - 21 March 2027, and since 29 October 2026 it has been complemented by an installation by Marcin Chomicki in the palace courtyard.

The Academy of Fine Arts Museum on the exhibition (our translation):

The exhibition prepared by the Museum of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw is the first account of this breadth of the output of the Artistic and Research Unit (ZAB). Drawing on the Museum’s unique collections, it brings out of the shadows the full spectrum of the work of this unit, which served as a laboratory of modern design in Poland.

For years dispersed and largely forgotten, the heritage of ZAB - spanning architecture, urban planning and design, among other fields - will be brought together to tell the story of one of the most significant phenomena in Polish visual culture of the second half of the 20th century.

Several hundred objects will be presented, a large part of which remain unknown to the wider public to this day.

What to expect

The starting point is the script of an exhibition that never opened, found during archival research: the members of ZAB prepared it in 1974 for the Unit’s twentieth anniversary, with a concept written by Lech Tomaszewski and an exhibition design by Viola Damięcka. The exhibition is structured by six design theses, from “spatio-temporal action through form” to “the optimisation of housing structures”. The theses let the visitor look at the projects not only through their function or purpose, but above all through the way form was understood and shaped.

The exhibition’s narrative is meant to mirror the Unit’s method of work, the integration of the arts. It recalls ZAB’s leaders, Jerzy Sołtan, Zbigniew Ihnatowicz, Lech Tomaszewski and Oskar Hansen, but also dozens of co-authors who remained outside the mainstream of art history. The list of authors includes Wojciech Fangor, Zofia and Oskar Hansen, Alina Szapocznikow and Krzysztof Wodiczko.

The exhibition is part of two anniversaries of the Academy: the centenary of the ŁAD Artists’ Cooperative (Spółdzielnia Artystów ŁAD) and the fiftieth anniversary of the Faculty of Design, which is why the museum shows selected works by ŁAD alongside the output of ZAB. By recalling Warszawianka and the interiors of Warszawa Śródmieście station, it also draws attention to ZAB projects that once helped shape the capital’s identity and today are forgotten or have suffered deep, often complete degradation.

The exhibition page illustrates the show with images including these:

• The swimming pools of the SKS “Warszawianka” sports complex - a photograph by Jan Fleischmann from 1972.
• The interiors of Warszawa Śródmieście station - a photograph taken in 1964 by Jerzy Sołtan.
• The “Wenecja” bar - a photograph by Zbigniew Kapuścik from the 1960s.
• A model of the “Osa M-55” scooter and the “Alfa 2” camera - design from the 1960s; the camera dates from 1963.

The museum does not say which of these objects it shows in the rooms in the original and which in photographs.

Part of the project is the installation “Zakłady Artystyczno-Badawcze. Archiwum Transformacji” (The Artistic and Research Unit. Archive of Transformation) in the courtyard of the Czapski Palace, on view from 29 October 2026 until the end of the exhibition. Its author, Marcin Chomicki, a painter and photographer born in 1976, documented in his Archiwum Transformacji (Archive of Transformation) series the destruction of what remains of post-war architecture, including ZAB projects such as the “Wenecja” bar and Warszawianka. In the courtyard he sets archival photographs of buildings from the 1950s and 1960s beside his own contemporary photographs and abstract paintings.

The curator of the exhibition is Jacqueline Horodyńska; the exhibition design and visual identity are by Łukasz Izert (Izert Studio), and the display system by Jakub Marzoch. The museum’s partners include the Academy’s Faculty of Design, the Masław Association / Tu było, tu stało, the Polska Sztuka Stosowana Foundation, UNITRA and the CENTRALA studio.

Context

The Artistic and Research Unit was founded on 1 January 1954 by the Academy’s rector, Marian Wnuk, as an experimental design and teaching unit at the Faculty of Interior Design. According to culture.pl, its members were professors, graduates and students of the Academy, and the Unit was meant to be a forum for cooperation between architects and urban planners, painters, designers, sculptors and engineers. The Faculty of Design, a partner of the exhibition, traces its own beginnings to it.

The Unit’s central figure was the architect Jerzy Sołtan, who worked with Le Corbusier for four years. He called his way of working at ZAB the integrating method; the Polish Wikipedia links it to Le Corbusier’s Modulor, Oskar Hansen’s theory of Open Form and Walter Gropius’s method of teamwork. From 1959 Sołtan taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he worked until his retirement in 1979.

According to culture.pl, it was the first prize won by Sołtan’s team in the competition for the Warszawianka sports complex that served as the justification for founding the Unit. Its studios produced the unrealised concept for the Polish pavilion at the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels, of which music by Stanisław Skrowaczewski was to be part. The Unit also designed the “Wenecja” bar next to the Wola department store, opened on 1 May 1961, and Sołtan, Ihnatowicz and their collaborators designed the interiors of Warszawa Śródmieście station from 1960-1962, with mosaic compositions by Wojciech Fangor.

Culture.pl writes that from about the mid-1960s the Unit went into decline and that most of its works are devastated today: “Wenecja” disappeared after a drastic reconstruction in 2000-2002, and some elements of the Śródmieście station interiors were devastated or removed.

The year the Unit was founded is not in doubt, but the sources give its end differently. The Polish Wikipedia says it operated in 1954-1977 and was dissolved with the creation of the Faculty of Industrial Design in 1977; culture.pl says it ceased to exist in the mid-1970s; “Architektura-Murator”, announcing the exhibition, gives its years of activity as 1954-1991. The museum’s pages on the exhibition give none of these dates.

Tickets and time

• Where: at the Czapski Palace, the home of the Academy of Fine Arts Museum; the exhibition page does not say in which room. Chomicki’s installation stands in the palace courtyard. Directions and accessibility are on the Academy of Fine Arts Museum profile.
• When: the exhibition runs 15 October 2026 - 21 March 2027, and the courtyard installation from 29 October 2026 until the end of the exhibition.
• Ticket: the exhibition page gives no admission terms and no ticket of its own. The exhibition is seen on the terms of entry to the museum, which the practical information box gives.
• Hours: the exhibition page gives its opening hours; they are the museum’s opening hours, shown in the practical information box.
• How long: the museum gives no visiting time. By our editors’ estimate, it is worth allowing at least an hour for several hundred objects arranged along six theses and for the courtyard installation.
• Who it’s for: anyone interested in the architecture and design of post-war Poland. Also those who know Warszawianka or Śródmieście station and want to know who designed them, and design students, because the exhibition is about a team method of working. For families with children the museum has prepared workshops, listed in the Events section.
• Who can skip it: anyone looking above all for painting and sculpture. The subject is architecture, urban planning and design, and most of ZAB’s works are devastated today, so much of the output is known from designs, models and photographs.

Events

The exhibition comes with a programme of guided tours, workshops, walks and discussions, prepared with the CENTRALA studio, the Masław Association / Tu było, tu stało, the Academy’s Faculty of Design and the UNITRA brand, among others. Below are the coming dates the museum has already published.

• 11 November 2026, 13:00-18:00 - Festiwal Wspólna Niepodległa (the Shared Independence Festival): workshops for children and teenagers, “Dziecięce Zakłady Artystyczno-Badawcze. Odbudujmy niepodległą Warszawę!” (The Children’s Artistic and Research Unit. Let’s rebuild independent Warsaw!), led by Barbara Orłowska and Jacqueline Horodyńska. With reference to the rebuilding of the Saxon Palace and to the exhibition, the children colour and assemble models of buildings. Venue: first floor of the Academy building, main entrance; free admission, the museum names no booking.
• 21 November 2026, 14:00 - a meeting with people linked to the Artistic and Research Unit: Teresa Kelm, Wojciech Małolepszy and Wojciech Wybieralski; the conversation is hosted by Jacqueline Horodyńska (Academy of Fine Arts Museum) and Agnieszka Sural (the Academy’s Faculty of Design).
• 28 November 2026, 14:00 - a walk around the grounds of the Warszawianka sports complex, led by CENTRALA Architekci.
• 6 December 2026, 12:00 - “Dziecięce Warsztaty Artystyczno-Badawcze” (Children’s Artistic and Research Workshops), St Nicholas Day workshops for children aged 6-12, led by Jacqueline Horodyńska and Barbara Orłowska.

What the press says

Both texts below come from media patrons of the exhibition.

• Architektura-Murator (7 October 2026, Tytus Łubin): an announcement that calls the exhibition the first monographic exhibition on ZAB’s heritage and otherwise repeats the museum’s text, with no assessment of its own - architektura.muratorplus.pl
• Magazyn Szum (12 October 2026, the editors, “Na Dobry Początek”): a preview of the opening that presents the exhibition as several hundred objects of architecture and design of the second half of the 20th century, with a narrative based on the 1974 script and the idea of the integration of the arts - magazynszum.pl

See also

• Academy of Fine Arts Museum - the profile of the museum at the Czapski Palace; directions are there too.
• Alina Szapocznikow / Nairy Baghramian - at Zachęta until 31 January 2027. Szapocznikow is on the list of authors of the exhibition at the Academy of Fine Arts Museum, and Zachęta writes about references to industrial design in the work of both artists.

Museum profile: Museum of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw.