NOMUS - New Art Museum (National Museum in Gdansk)

What to expect

NOMUS in Gdansk, the New Art Museum (Nowe Muzeum Sztuki), is the place for anyone looking for contemporary art in Gdansk rather than old masters. It is a department of the National Museum in Gdansk at ul. Stefana Jaracza 14, on the historic grounds of the shipyard. Polish Wikipedia calls it the first museum in the city’s history devoted to a permanent collection of contemporary art.

The programme rests, as “Rzeczpospolita” announced, on the Gdansk Collection of Contemporary Art (Gdańska Kolekcja Sztuki Współczesnej), which the city has been building with the National Museum since 2017. The same building houses the Gdansk Photography Gallery (Gdańska Galeria Fotografii), which moved in in 2024 with collections numbering several thousand items. The two departments share one price list, so a single visit covers both contemporary art and photography.

The museum occupies a former vocational school of the shipyard from about 1935; as it writes itself on the pomorskie.travel portal, it has created “a friendly space in the former school workshop building”. A lift takes you to the floors open to visitors, and the reception hall has a zone for children’s independent play and a place to rest.

Who it suits: people who want to see contemporary art and photography in one place, students (pupils and students aged 8-26 pay a token amount) and families with children, who will make good use of the play zone. The accessibility audit on the Tourist Card (Karta Turysty) website rates the building as very friendly to people with intellectual disabilities.

Who should skip it: anyone looking for old art or historic interiors. This is a museum of contemporary art in a converted shipyard school from the 1930s.

How long: the museum does not state a visiting time. Noizz.pl, in its report on the opening in 2021, wrote that the visit alone deserves several hours to get to know the exhibition properly. That report was written before the Gdansk Photography Gallery moved into the building, so it does not cover its exhibitions.

Tips

• One day a week at no charge. The shared price list of NOMUS and the Gdansk Photography Gallery gives: free admission on Tuesdays. It is a good day for a first, exploratory visit.
• Come early. Since Noizz.pl advises allowing several hours for the exhibition, do not leave your visit until the end of the day: last entry at 17:30.
• A ticket for several branches. The 7-day ticket gives one admission to the permanent and temporary exhibitions of every branch of the National Museum in Gdansk within seven days. It costs only a little more than two standard NOMUS tickets; there is also an annual bearer ticket.
• Family or a group of friends. The family or friends ticket for 3-8 people costs less per person than a standard ticket; an organised group of 10 or more pays the same per person. The amounts are in the museum’s price list.
• Tourist Card. The Odkrywca Premium package of the Gdansk Tourist Card (Karta Turysty) includes entry to NOMUS.
• Accessibility. Steps and a ramp lead to the entrance from ul. Stefana Jaracza, a lift takes you to all floors open to visitors, and the adapted toilet is on the ground floor. The ticket desk has an induction loop, and a sign-language interpreter is available after online contact; parking spaces for people with disabilities are on ul. Jaracza, next to the building.
• Note for visitors with low vision. The building has no tactile maps, no Braille plates and no sound navigation. The Tourist Card audit points to stairs without contrast marking and unprotected pillars, including on the way to the ticket desk; you can enter with an assistance dog or a guide dog without restriction.
• Call before the holidays. The museum publishes a list of closing days for this year; the current dates are in the practical box, and you can ask the ticket desk about anything else on +48 517 612 148.

Getting there

• Address: Stefana Jaracza 14, 80-863 Gdańsk, on the historic grounds of the Gdansk shipyard.
• Tram: according to the ZTM Gdańsk timetable, the closest stops are “Plac Solidarności 01” (about 260 m) and “Plac Solidarności 02” (about 290 m), served by lines 2, 3, 7 and 8. The same lines stop at “Stocznia SKM 01” (about 326 m) and “Stocznia SKM 02” (about 376 m). The museum says the walk from the Plac Solidarności and Dworzec Główny stops takes about 10-15 minutes.
• Bus: the “Europejskie Centrum Solidarności 02” stop (about 243 m) is served by line 130, and “Plac Solidarności 04” (about 400 m) by lines 100, 106, 108, 111, 112, 123, 130, 138, 154, 166, 167, 178, 184, 186, 189, 199, 208, 212, 267 and 289. The closer stops “Jana z Kolna 01” and “Jana z Kolna 03” are for alighting only.
• Train and SKM: according to the museum, the walk from Gdańsk Główny station takes about 15 minutes, and from the Gdańsk Stocznia SKM stop about 10 minutes.
• By car: the museum points to parking spaces for people with disabilities on ul. Stefana Jaracza, next to the building.

The distances to the stops are straight-line distances from the museum’s Wikipedia coordinates, calculated from ZTM Gdańsk data.

Nearby

The closest museums with a profile on this site (straight-line distances):

• European Solidarity Centre, Plac Solidarności 1 - about 200 m. According to the ECS, visitors spend an average of two hours in the permanent exhibition, and its greatest treasure is the boards with the 21 Demands, listed in the UNESCO “Memory of the World” register. Check the opening days of both places: ECS - closed on Tuesdays, NOMUS - closed on Mondays.
• Hevelianum, ul. Gradowa 6 - about 800 m. It stands behind the railway and bus stations, on the site of a former fort on Góra Gradowa (Gradowa Hill), so it fits your route if you arrive at Gdańsk Główny.
• Museum of Amber, Wielkie Młyny 16 - about 1 km. Housed in the Great Mill (Wielki Młyn), built by the Teutonic Knights around 1350, it shows over 1000 exhibits, from lumps with inclusions 40 million years old to designs by contemporary artists.

Background

The rooms you walk through today were not built for a museum. The building went up around 1935, and during the Second World War it housed a vocational school training future workers of the Schichau Shipyard. From 2004 to 2014 it was the home of the Wyspa Institute of Art (Instytut Sztuki Wyspa).

In 2015 the city and regional authorities and the ministry decided to create a museum of contemporary art within the National Museum in Gdansk, and the city paid for the modernisation of the former school. According to Wikipedia, it opened on 22 October 2021, after almost seven years of preparation. In 2024 the Gdansk Photography Gallery moved into the building; in the museum’s structure both departments belong to the Modern Art Branch (Oddział Sztuki Nowoczesnej). The museum now calls itself one of the youngest museums of contemporary art in Poland.