Nowa Huta - Dimitrovgrad

Two towns planned from scratch for heavy industry now stand side by side on the pedestrian stretch of Aleja Róż. The Nowa Huta Museum, whose own building is under renovation, has taken this exhibition out into the street and made it together with the history museum of Dimitrovgrad in Bulgaria.

Nowa Huta Museum on the exhibition (our translation of the Polish original; the museum publishes no English text for this show):

The exhibition “Nowa Huta - Dimitrovgrad” tells the story of Nowa Huta and the Bulgarian town of Dimitrovgrad. Dimitrovgrad is a town built from 1947 onwards, where the chemical, engineering, food, fuel and energy, textile, clothing, leather and furniture industries developed.

What to expect

The display stands on Aleja Róż (the Avenue of Roses), level with the Centrum C housing estate - that is how the Museum of Krakow’s “Zajrzyj do Huty 2026” festival programme describes the spot. The avenue runs north from Plac Centralny, and its stretch between the Centrum B and Centrum C estates is pedestrianised. The branch’s website lists it as the only temporary exhibition at present, because the former Światowid cinema is still a building site.

The museum lists eleven themes and covers each of them for both towns. They include the people who built them, the successive stages of construction, architects, propaganda, the big industrial plants and green spaces. Then come writers, including critics of the political system, outdoor sculptures and their later removal, sport tied to the workplaces, contacts between the two towns and what they are like today.

The exhibition grew out of meetings between staff of the Nowa Huta Museum and the Historical Museum in Dimitrovgrad; staff of the Krakow branch visited Bulgaria in August 2025. The museum presents this as a nod to the visits that representatives of the two towns paid each other from 1955. The show is part of ATRIUM, a Council of Europe cultural route devoted to the architecture of the 20th century’s totalitarian regimes. According to the museum, Krakow with Nowa Huta joined the route in 2024, and Dimitrovgrad is on it as well.

The museum does not say how many parts the display has or who put it together. The opening took place on site on 10 September 2026. During “Zajrzyj do Huty”, on 18-20 September, the museum ran guided tours of the exhibition and brought visitors to it on a vintage “Ogórek” bus. The museum’s website announces no further tours.

Context

Dimitrovgrad lies in southern Bulgaria on the Maritsa river, in Haskovo Province, about 220 km from Sofia. Construction began on 10 May 1947 by merging three villages, and most of the work was done by young volunteers from all over the country. The town was named after Georgi Dimitrov, Bulgaria’s first communist leader, and was conceived as a model socialist town.

The oldest buildings have monumental facades with plinths, columns and small balconies; the later estates are plainer and modernist. The Dimitrov monument was removed in 1992, shortly after the fall of communism in Bulgaria. The population peaked at over 50,000 between 1985 and 1992; in 2016 it was just under 39,000.

Nowa Huta is its contemporary. The decision to build the steelworks was taken on 17 May 1947, the town went up from 1949 to a plan by Tadeusz Ptaszycki, and in 1951 it was incorporated into Krakow. Dimitrovgrad municipality lists Nowa Huta on its website as a twin town since 1955.

Aleja Róż itself belongs to this story. A statue of Lenin stood in its southern part, between the Centrum B and C estates, from 1973 to 1989, so the theme of dismantled outdoor sculpture has a concrete address here.

Tickets and time

The museum gives no ticket or price. The exhibition stands in the open air, and its page mentions neither a ticket office nor opening hours. The opening was free and needed no booking; the “Zajrzyj do Huty” programme also described the September tours as free.

The exhibition runs until 10 November 2026. Allow about half an hour; that is our estimate for eleven themes outdoors, not a figure from the museum. The museum publishes no English version of the description and does not say which languages the texts on display are in.

Who is it for? Anyone who is in Nowa Huta anyway, and anyone curious about the town planning of communist Poland and towns built from nothing. Do not travel out from the centre for this exhibition alone: it is a good stop on a walk, not a half-day destination. Combine it with Plac Centralny and the Nowa Huta Underground shelters, a 10-15 minute walk north along Aleja Róż itself.

From the city centre, take a tram to the Plac Centralny im. R. Reagana stop; from the area around the main railway station the ride takes about half an hour. Aleja Róż starts at the square.

See also

• Nowa Huta Museum - the profile of the branch behind the exhibition: the former Światowid cinema under renovation, the office and education programme at os. Szkolne 22, guided walks around the district on request.
• Nowa Huta Underground at os. Szkolne 22 - a 1950s air-raid shelter with an exhibition about the Cold War, some fifteen minutes’ walk north along Aleja Róż.
• Nowa Huta Underground at os. Szkolne 37 - a shelter under a former technical school with the exhibition “Stan zagrożenia” (State of Emergency), a few minutes from the os. Szkolne 22 site.
• Hotel Forum - until 10 January 2027 at the Podgórze Museum; another Museum of Krakow branch looks at the architecture of communist Poland, this time late and brutalist.

Museum profile: Nowa Huta Museum .