The museum is located in a historically significant site in Warsaw that is distinctive in terms of urban planning. Converging here are protected park and urban recreational areas, the Baroque Ujazdowski castle, Skarpa Warszawska, and a main traffic route that is thirty to ninety meters wide and lies six to ten meters below ground, cutting through the entire plot. The museum’s orientation in terms of content and situation aims at reinforcing and further developing the existing qualities of the central location, and also, forestalling a planned superstructure project for the road. The single-story building complex remains reserved and orients on the existing axis rather than competing with the dominant castle. It extends 168 by 125 meters and consists of strips of different length and height which by means of saw-tooth roofs include lit exhibition areas, foyer, restaurant, administration, conference center, and supporting functions. In the interior, the “spatial strips” are broken by atria, which ensure a multitude of entrances and circular paths, and thereby different exhibition concepts as well as maximum spatial flexibility.
