Depot History Centre

What to expect

The Depot History Centre (Centrum Historii Zajezdnia) in Wroclaw is a museum of post-war Wroclaw in a building that is itself part of that history: the former bus repair hall of the MPK municipal transport depot on Grabiszyńska Street. The main exhibition covers the whole post-war history of Wroclaw, Lower Silesia and the other regions joined to Poland as a result of the Second World War.

The heart of the visit is the permanent exhibition “Wrocław 1945-2016”, arranged in the depot hall and divided into eight parts in chronological order. It covers 1980 square metres on two levels: 1414 square metres above and 566 square metres in the underground part, so the visit also takes you below ground.

The place quickly found its audience. According to Radio Wrocław, 95,000 people visited it in less than a year after it opened in September 2016, and today it has a rating of 4.7 out of 5 from 4537 reviews on Google Maps (read on 25 October 2026).

Who it suits: anyone who wants to understand how today’s Wroclaw took shape from 1945 onwards, and anyone interested in the history of “Solidarity”, because the building is a monument to the strike of August 1980. It works well with children: the exhibition has no age limit, and for the youngest there is a game with a map that leads to hidden stamps. Who should skip it: anyone looking for art or earlier periods; here the story begins in 1945.

How long: the museum says that an average visit to the exhibition “Wrocław 1945-2016” takes about two hours. So set aside two hours and arrive early enough to fit them in before closing time; the hours are in the practical information box.

Tips

• Entrance from Grabiszyńska Street. According to the museum’s post of 23 October 2026, the square in front of the building is fenced off while it is being rebuilt, and you enter from the bistro side, from Grabiszyńska Street. The main exhibition remains open to visitors.
• Different hours across the week. The centre opens earliest on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and stays open longest from Friday to Sunday (on Fridays 10:00-18:00); otherwise it is closed on Mondays.
• Tickets at the desk or online. You can buy a ticket at the centre’s ticket office or in the online shop sklep.zajezdnia.org; prices: standard ticket 20 PLN (about 5 EUR), reduced 10 PLN (about 2 EUR). There is also a family ticket for at most two adults and at least two children over the age of 7, and reduced tickets go to, among others, school pupils, university and doctoral students, disability pensioners, and people with disabilities and their carers.
• A guide is not required. Individual visitors explore on their own, without booking a guide; organised groups see the main exhibition with a guide. A guided tour in Polish or English costs extra on top of the ticket, more for English; the prices are on the museum’s website.
• With children. Children under 12 visit in the care of an adult. A game awaits them in the exhibition: a special map leads them into the nooks of the display where stamps have been hidden, which helps keep younger children busy during a visit of about two hours.
• Accessibility. The exhibition has ramps, lifts and an electrically powered chair, and at the ticket office you can borrow a wheelchair and folding stools. According to the Google Maps listing, there is also a wheelchair-accessible toilet. You may come in with a guide dog, and there is an induction loop at the ticket desk.
• Headphones and a magnifier from the desk. Visitors sensitive to noise can borrow noise-reducing headphones at the ticket office, in children’s and adult sizes; together with your ticket you can also get an illuminated magnifier.
• A ride in the “Ogórek”. According to the museum’s Instagram post of 13 September 2026, the centre runs rides in a real Jelcz 043 bus, nicknamed the “Ogórek” (the Cucumber); a ride is booked through a form.

Getting there

• Address: ul. Grabiszyńska 184, 53-235 Wrocław; while the square is being rebuilt, the entrance is from the bistro side, from Grabiszyńska Street.
• Tram: the nearest stop, “Bzowa (Centrum Historii Zajezdnia)”, is about 137 m from the building in a straight line. According to the timetable in the City of Wroclaw’s open data, tram lines 4, 5, 11 and 14 stop there; the same lines serve the “Hutmen” stop, about 361 m from the building.
• Bus: buses 124, 126 and 134 and night line 246 stop at “Bzowa (Centrum Historii Zajezdnia)”. The “Inżynierska” stop, about 191 m from the building, is served by buses 125 and A and night line 241.

Background

The hall in which you see the exhibition today is the former bus repair hall. The building itself dates from the late 19th century and was built as a depot of the Wroclaw municipal tramways (Städtische Straßenbahn Breslau); after 1945 it served as a bus depot of the Miejskie Przedsiębiorstwo Komunikacyjne, the city’s municipal transport company.

The building is a monument to the Solidarity August of 1980: on 26 August the region’s first Inter-Factory Strike Committee was formed here. As Wikipedia notes, this is why it was chosen as the seat of the museum, which opened on 16 September 2016. The PAP news agency, in a report published by culture.pl, recalls that it was precisely the former repair hall that was adapted for the museum, and that the exhibition was laid out on two levels, with a part underground. In this way, the site of the August strike became the place that tells the story of the whole post-war city and region.