Lares and Penates. On Building a Sense of Security in Architecture

Poland’s exhibition at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale is back in the country for the first time, at Wawel Royal Castle and in a selection reworked for the castle. Fire extinguishers and security cameras share the room with a storm candle and salt scattered in a corner. The ticket costs 5 PLN, or nothing if you already hold one for the castle’s first floor.

Wawel Royal Castle on the exhibition:

Security is one of the most fundamental human needs. Architecture meets this need by providing shelter and protection. However, a sense of security does not stem solely from the quality of construction, the technology used or compliance with applicable standards. It is also shaped by gestures, customs, symbols and rituals, through which we tame our surroundings and regain a sense of control over the reality around us.

The exhibition’s starting point is Lares and Penates - Roman guardian deities associated with the home and its inhabitants. Their presence serves as a reminder that, since time immemorial, the need for protection has found expression in both practical solutions and cultural practices. The exhibition explores Polish customs, rituals and superstitions associated with building and living in a home, treating them as a testament to collective experiences and ways of taming uncertainty.

What to expect

According to the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, the show fills the temporary exhibition hall in building no. 7 on Wawel Hill, the building the castle also lists as home to the “Wawel Recovered” display. According to the exhibition page, you enter it through the “Wawel Recovered” display, so head there. The castle publishes no count of objects or rooms.

The whole project rests on two orders of security, presented as equals. One is security by the rulebook: building codes, fire regulations, workplace safety. The other is the feeling of security that Polish households drew from rituals meant to keep misfortune away.

According to the castle’s curator, interviewed by the Polish weekly Tygodnik Powszechny, this is what the Wawel show is about:

• A gromnica, or storm candle - a blessed candle meant to guard the house during a thunderstorm, the plainest case of an everyday object credited with protective power.
• Salt scattered in a corner - a household defence against evil forces, shown on the same footing as the technical kit.
• A camera, a fire extinguisher and bars - the present-day versions of those gestures, security straight out of the regulations.
• A shelter door - her example of a physical barrier, used to separate actual security from the mere feeling of it; the interview does not say whether the door itself is on display.

In Venice the pavilion also held a horseshoe, a dowsing rod and protective signs on the threshold, and a fire extinguisher stood in a shell-encrusted niche like a saint’s statue. The castle does not say how much of that made the trip to Krakow. The curator promises a selection built around the security of Wawel itself: its walls, towers and defences.

Context

Lares and Penates were the household gods of ancient Rome; in Polish the phrase also survives as an old-fashioned way of saying “home and all its belongings”. The project won the competition for the Polish Pavilion at the 19th Architecture Biennale, chosen from 45 qualifying entries. It ran in Venice from 10 May to 23 November 2025, under Carlo Ratti’s overall theme “Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective.”

The Polish Pavilion has stood in the Giardini since 1932, and Zachęta, the national art gallery in Warsaw, has organised its shows for over seventy years.

The team is deliberately mixed: art historian and curator Aleksandra Kędziorek, architect Maciej Siuda, and two artists. Katarzyna Przezwańska makes sculpture and architectural interventions; Krzysztof Maniak, a graduate of the Krakow academy’s intermedia faculty, works in the landscape around Tuchów. At Wawel the castle’s curator is Dr Bogumiła Wiśniewska, who looks after contemporary art there.

Tickets and time

Wawel sells a separate ticket for almost everything on the hill, so it pays to know which one covers what. This show costs 5 PLN regular, 3 PLN reduced, at the ticket offices or online at bilety.wawel.krakow.pl. It is free with the “Castle” ticket (first and second floors, 95/71 PLN) or the “Castle First Floor” ticket (57/43 PLN). If the first floor is already on your list, add this show to the same visit.

Open Tuesday to Sunday, 9:00-17:00 (9 AM-5 PM), last entry 20 minutes before closing. Closed on 1 and 11 November, 24-26 and 31 December, and 1 January.

October and December: on Mondays, 10:00-16:00, the castle offers free admission to selected exhibitions, with a limited pool of free tickets available only at the ticket offices. This show is neither in that offer nor on the paid Monday list, so do not plan it for a Monday.

November: the castle’s “Free November 2026” rules apply, set out on its What to see page. This show is not free under them. Tuesday to Sunday it is covered by the paid “Castle First Floor” ticket (57/43 PLN). On our reading, the show’s own 5/3 PLN ticket also works: the castle says that in November all other exhibitions take tickets from its price list, and the price list gives this show its own price. On Mondays, 10:00-16:00, the Royal Private Apartments, Wawel Recovered and Between the Walls are open free of charge with free entry tickets, but the castle does not list this show in the Monday offer. If you come in November for the free second floor, you will pay separately for this show.

Allow 30-45 minutes on your own; the curator’s tour lasts 45 minutes, which sets the upper limit. Best for anyone interested in architecture, folk custom or design, and for those who missed Venice. If you saw the pavilion, expect a selection rather than a rerun. If you have one hour at Wawel and it is your first visit, spend it in the royal apartments instead.

English on site: the castle publishes an English page for the exhibition but does not say whether the labels are bilingual, and none of the tours announced so far is billed as English-language.

What the press says

Tygodnik Powszechny (22 Sep 2026, Jacek Taran): an interview with the castle’s curator, whose main point is that Wawel is not only the host but one of the show’s subjects - link (Polish-language source). In it Dr Bogumiła Wiśniewska says the Wawel version is “not an exhibition transferred one to one, but a selection of works” (our translation).

Harvard Graduate School of Design (17 Jul 2025, A. Krista Sykes), on the Venice edition: a review of the whole Biennale that counts the Polish Pavilion among the standout national presentations. It singles out the fire extinguisher set in a niche normally reserved for a saint - link .

designdoc.pl (17 May 2025, Franek Tchórzewski), on the Venice edition: an opening report. It lists evacuation signs, alarms and fire extinguishers side by side with a horseshoe, a dowsing rod and a storm candle - link (Polish-language source).

Three pieces so far: one favourable review and one report, both from Venice, plus a pre-opening interview at Wawel. No review of the Krakow version had been found as of 7 October.

Updates

• 7 Oct 2026 - the castle announced its “Free November 2026” rules: the show stays paid in November, and its ticket and hours are unchanged (sources: What to see , exhibition page , both in Polish).

See also

• Art and Trade. Krakow of Craftsmen - at the Krzysztofory Palace until 25 October. The other side of the same story: the guild rituals of craftsmen who, in exchange for their privileges, armed the city towers and defended its walls.
• Katarzyna Krakowiak-Bałka. Ecologies of Togetherness - at MOCAK until 18 October. An artist treating the museum building as a living organism, a different way into architecture.
• Zachęta - National Gallery of Art - the Warsaw gallery that runs the Polish Pavilion in Venice and co-organises this show at Wawel.

Tickets, opening hours, and current details are on the Wawel Royal Castle website .

Museum profile: Wawel Royal Castle .