MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art in Kraków
Contemporary art museum in Zabłocie, built among the halls of the former Schindler enamel factory.
MOCAK opened in May 2011 on ul. Lipowa in Zabłocie, on the site of the enamel works run during the German occupation by Oskar Schindler. The Florentine architect Claudio Nardi, working with Leonardo Maria Proli, kept the surviving industrial halls and set new volumes between them, roofing the complex with a run of shallow saw-tooth vaults that give the galleries even north light. It was the first purpose-built contemporary art museum in Poland since the Second World War.
The museum shows international and Polish art of the past two decades and holds a collection of some several thousand works, displayed in rotation on the lower level. Its programme pairs large temporary exhibitions with thematic projects, and the building also contains a library built around the private collection of the art historian Mieczysław Porębski, a bookshop, a reading room and education spaces. Outdoor works are placed in the courtyard, and the neighbouring Schindler factory museum is run separately.
Highlights
- Saw-tooth roof lights over galleries in a former enamel works
- Rotating displays from the MOCAK Collection on Level -1
- Library holding Mieczysław Porębski's private collection
- Outdoor sculpture and installations in the courtyard
