Subway station C13 “Centrum Nauki Kopernik”

The project of “Centrum Nauki Kopernik” station (formerly “Powiśle”) was a part of one of the largest metropolitan infrastructure projects of the last decade in Europe.

The investor decided to carry it out in a two-stage system, including “Design and Build”. Our task, after winning the international competition, was to prepare a Multi-branch Concept Design. The project developed by us then became the basis for defining the order in the tender for the general contractor and one of the elements of the investor’s contract with him. This task turned out to be relatively difficult. It required the inclusion of the most important elements of the architectural design in the concept phase and an authorial assessment of which of them should be developed in detail as the most important for defining the nature of the central section of the second metro line. And that’s including the details. Then, the most important parts and details of the conceptual design had to be properly defined so that they would remain until the end of construction and would be a mainstay of the project’s identity.
The leading idea was to create a usable space that would be an architectural synthesis of functions, painting and sculptural elements combined with technology and construction. One of the assumptions behind the implementation of such a Renaissance triad was the idea of ​​cooperation with an artist, a world-famous painter with experience of designing in urban space. The colorful exits from the subway, which stand out in the urban space, were conceived as sculptural and painting artifacts, steel and glass elements facilitating e.g. orientation on a metropolitan scale. On the platforms, in the absence of sunlight, in artificial lighting, a universe has been created in which architecture gives the initiative for color and artistic narration.

Project Date: 2007 – 2009

Realization date: 2010-2015