The extended historical building of the Academy and the newly built wing accommodates workshop rooms of the sculpture and the conservation departments. Additionally, the annexed building includes: the newly created department of set design, the Academy audytorium and lecture rooms for classes in theory and history of art.
The pre-war Academy building was seriously outclassed during the post-war reconstruction works. Made one floor higher and deprived of its characteristic box-bay windows, slightly reminiscent of Mackintosh’s Glasgow School of Art, the building was divided inside into cramped, mezzanine rooms, which annihilated the unique proportions and atmosphere of the interior.
The historic building has a very clear and orderly design. A small classicist block containing the entrance hall forms a part of the boulevard frontage. The artist workshops are located in the wing set at an angle to the street and lit from the north.
We have exposed the north façade of this wing by positioning it in a courtyard that opens towards the boulevard, based on a streamlined plan set obliquely to the boulevard.
The yard – the student works exposition place –facilitates the school’s contact with the passers-by.
The restoration of the glazed bays in the old façade, embraced between the fluted pilasters, as well as the glazing of the façade of the new part of the courtyard, creates an impression of the negative of an icicle hollowed in the block of „rough” stone buildings.This highlights the internal relationships of the old part with the new one, and binds the whole building with the greenery of the park on the Vistula. The broad path – or the meadow – being an extension of the „icicle”, will in the future run through the green valley – a saddle- shaped roof of the park pavilion, housing the Academy promotion and information department, and further towards the riverbank.
The workshop-like character of the studios, the ribbed ceilings of reinforced concrete, the walls and shield-like pillars are a continuation of the architectural structure of the Academy building of the early 20th century.
