This presentation of new Polish cultural architecture signifies a visitor’s perspective of selected eye-catching buildings. With 60 images of 21 new and special cultural places in 11 main cities in Poland, the aim is to show what Polish cities have done to develop their cities through cultural buildings. This essay accompanies the photos and contains a number of quotes on new cultural architecture that may serve as leads for discussion. 

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.The photo's were made during the Summers of 2020, 2021 and 2022. My focus was on museums, theatres, and the like in their context, cultural buildings in the public domain – the outside part with open access. No shopping malls, no office towers, no churches, no buildings that are only visible after passing a paywall. I took ‘new’ arbitrarily as buildings that were opened 2010 onwards and were newly constructed or a result of major overhaul / redevelopment of existing structures, and ‘cities’ as major places with a regional function. ‘New’ is not a precise concept and not limited to physical structures – regeneration contains physically old elements, with added newness and new concepts. The selection of buildings was somewhat subjective – personal suggestions and a review of articles and (online) magazines about cultural architecture informed my decisions on places and buildings to be included or to be left out.

Photo's in this essay are from a visitors' perspective. Not the perspective of architects to show design details or a suggestive design, or the perspective of photographers waiting for the perfect light or using Photoshop to make photos more attractive. WYSIWYG - what you see is what you get, given the weather conditions of the days the photo's were made.