The Malopolska Garden of Arts (MGA)
The Malopolska Garden of Arts building belongs to the most successful cultural and architectural achievements in Krakow of the last years. It blended historical context with contemporary expressive architecture, introducing a new spatial order to the XIX townhouses and their backyards between Rajska and Szujskiego streets in Krakow.
The west wing holds a modern art and media library, with multimedia books and music, while the section standing on Rajska Street holds the set of theatrical functions. The new hall – operating, as a studio theatre, conference room, concert hall, and venue for banquets and exhibitions – holds retractable stages for 300 people. State-of-the-art stage technology is present overhead: fixed on hoists and cranes to the steel ceiling girders. This allows dramas and concerts to be performed, and exhibitions, film screenings, symposiums, conferences, art auctions, fashion shows, and many more events to be held. Altogether, the space of about 4300 sq.m houses a theatre together with a cosy cinema with 98 seats, a café, and premises for the organisation of educational, art-related activities.
The building striking contemporary form is a contextual game between “mimesis and the abstraction”. It draws inspiration from of the contextual code, by making references to the geometry and materials of the neighbouring structures. The historical forms and materials, in this case forms of the roofs and the geometrical composition of facades and such materials as brick and steel, have been analyzed, interpreted and processed to achieve the new, contemporary form and expression.