Building a Lighthouse In the Heart of Warsaw: POLIN and Its Architect

RAINER MAHLAMÄKI and His POLIN Building at the 10th anniversary of the Museum 

Special Essay with an Exclusive Interview

The Phenomenon of the POLIN

Almost a decade ago, my husband and I stepped inside the POLIN Museum in Warsaw for the first time, soon after its opening, yet before meeting its architect in person. We have had a lot of various cultural and memorial projects in Poland from the beginning of the 2000s onward, and knew from all sides, inside and very much outside Poland of the forthcoming  museum which was awaited with unprecedented eagerness. 

POLIN Museum, Warsaw. (C) Lahdelma & Mahlamäki Architects. With kind permission.

There was a very solid reason for that. Historically, there was no more Jewish country in the world than Poland was for centuries until 1939, with almost 3.5 million Jews, 10% of the country’s population, living there for generations. Before the Second World War, 60% of the world Jewry lived in Europe, and 37% of them were living in Poland, making up to 21% of the entire world Jewry at the time. The post-war figure is devastating. Surviving the Shoah was 6.85% of the great Polish Jewry.

We all, from Warsaw to New York, and from Lublin to Sydney, were eagerly awaiting for the place where this super-rich, organic to the core and the same painful, deeply dramatic story would be finally told.  

Old Map of the Jewish district in Warsaw, with the POLIN now standing in the centre. (C) Historical Jewish Institute. With kind permission.

From the Polish end, the idea about the museum originated at the noble and brave Historical Jewish Institute, with the work on its fulfillment started by a devoted committee in 1993-1994. It took twenty years of a sternly-focused effort of many people to make it happen. 

In the expectations of so many, POLIN was a gesture of fairness, a diary, a song, an identity story coming out of a very long hiding and suppressing, a chance for decency, a dream, a gravestone for numerous souls left without it. It was a hope and it was a necessity. 

Professor Mahlamäki’s original sketch of the POLIN Museum. (C) Lahdelma & Mahlamäki Architects. With kind permission.

What would it be like? Excited expectations preceded the appearance of the building in 2014. The building which has become iconic in so many senses after the POLIN was opened to the public in October 2014, very justly so. 

Looking back to the POLIN origins at the time of the museum’s 10th anniversary, the author of a now famous building, architect from Finland professor Rainer Mahlamäki mentioned in our recent conversation: “Thinking in a broader terms, I am not quite sure if anything like the POLIN project could be conceived and done now”. His point is very valid.

Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the POLIN Museum. Warsaw, September 2024. (C) POLIN. With kind permission.

As professor Mahlamäki reflects today, “This unique experience has also enriched my life in so many ways. I learned to love Poland, its history and its people. From 2005 onward, I am still reading attentively the news from and regarding the country, I follow its development closely. I was privileged to meet, to work and to know truly remarkable people, historians, museologists, curators, architects, engineers, officials, and of course, sponsors and benefactors. The architects from our Polish partner bureau have become good friends to this day. The interaction in our work  during the long process of making POLIN a reality with the people from the Historical Jewish Institute, the City of Warsaw, the Polish Ministry of Culture was always productive and rich, mutually respectful, meaningful and memorable. The whole experience of our work on POLIN is much more than work on a certain project. It has become a very substantial part of my life”. 

The author of POLIN building prof. Rainer Mahlamäki at the special Architecture as a Book event at the 10th anniversary celebration of the POLIN Museum. Warsaw, September 2024. Photo: Magda Staronieyska. (C). POLIN, with kind permission.

During the decade after POLIN opened its doors, professor Mahlamäki visited Warsaw often and regularly. He always tries to be there around April 19th, the day of the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising back in 1943, to participate in the commemorations of the incredible strength of human spirit, the date engraved in our modern history and our consciousness. 

Ten years on, I remember vividly my husband and my first impressions when we entered the new POLIN Museum: the light that mastered and graced a huge, unusually curved, lobby from practically any angle from that very high ceiling, creating soft rays which were embracing people from every direction.  There were so many of us, running to see what’s inside, and how the story of our families and our people has been told, finally. The light was  dispersing in the way which immediately provided and actually instituted a comfort and a sense of a continuity from the first minute of you entering the space which looked softly metaphorical and classically modern. I remember my husband, the artist who used to work in theatre a lot and who  understands about space professionally, said: “One has to be a good person to create such a building “,  and in a minute, after a short pause, Michael continued: “For this kind of a museum, especially”.  

Interior of the POLIN Museum. (C). Lahdelma & Mahlamäki Architects. With kind permission.

The POLIN Architect’s Vision: “ The Building That Tells the History of Europe”

Notably, professor Mahlamäki has a special touch and his trade-mark vision for buildings of culture, like various museums. Of many other projects of this kind, POLIN has become a key one  in the solid Rainer Mahlamäki portfolio of the projects on memorial architecture. I wrote about it in detail previously. 

Professor Mahlamäki’s authored sketch of the interior of the POLIN Museum. (C) Lahdelma & Mahlamäki. With kind permission.

Before the jury for the future Museum of the History of Polish Jews selected the winner back in the summer of 2006, they went through as many as about 160 applications, a number of them from outstanding teams and architects. Eleven projects were chosen for submitting their project concepts. Why did the POLIN jury have chosen the project by the Finnish architect and his Lahdelma & Mahlamäki Architects bureau? I asked this question from many key decision-makers on the Polish side, whom I know and been friends with for many years, including the legendary survivor  and a long-term chairman of the International Auschwitz Committee great Marian Turski, who exemplifies the strength and wisdom of  Jewish spirit not only to me, but to so many of us. 

Professor Rainer Mahlamäki with legendary Marian Turski at the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the POLIN Museum. Warsaw, September 2024. Photo: Magda Staronieyska. (C) POLIN Museum. With kind permission.

“For the congeniality of Rainer’s project ,- dear Marian has told me thoughtfully and very seriously, because POLIN is much more than a museum for him and his perished in the Shoah family. – For this enlightened simplicity which is not simple at all, but which is a very elaborate distilled deep thinking, and which provided an elegant space for everything we wanted to place in our story, and this is an epic story, as you know, succeeding in it without any conflict with any dimension that is known to a man. Time including” – Marian smiled with his impeccable wit of these fine, unique Polish Jewish intellectuals. 

Interior of the POLIN Museum. (C) Lahdelma & Mahlamäki. With kind permission.

In his turn, professor Mahlamäki praises his colleagues working on the POLIN’s concept and its exceptional Core Exhibition. “In the case of all that highly demanding, long and hard process of the work on the POLIN undertaken by so many people, each working in its own field, the Museum project team, and , in particular, the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute which was the heart of the process, it was a very stimulating joint effort. The director of the  project team and the museum, Jerzy Halberstadt was a real force to lead the project – I had had a really good cooperation with him. The curators working under the guidance of Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, also did such a very good and serious work. I can say that in all directions required, everything was worked out and prepared really well, including the forthcoming museum’s planning, strategy, the way of creating  the future Core Exposition, presentation, promotion. Such preparedness provided a possibility for us, me and my both Lahdelma & Mahlamäki team of architects in Finland and our Polish partners, to work with the understanding and vision shared by all of us who worked on POLIN. That joint effort, that vision, clarity, preparedness, deep knowledge and high intellectual level, in my view, has elevated the POLIN as an institution to the place it took on a world scale today”.

Professor Mahlamäki’s authored sketch for the POLIN Museum. (C) Lahdelma & Mahlamäki Architects. With kind permission.

The author of the building of the institution which has become an indisputable leader among the European museums, not solely theme-bonded, but as an educational cultural institution, is absolutely right. The Core Exhibition of the POLIN is exemplary. It is rich, multi-sided, objective, thoughtful, knowledgeable, presentative, on a high-level of intellectual integrity, and most of all, highly dignified. The kind of experience that POLIN provides is rare, especially from modern-time museums. What is more and encouraging, ten years on, the POLIN team produces many great exhibitions non-stop, being very much up to the latest museum presentation’ thinking, criteria and means. It is an ongoing joy. And it is a very serious continuous contribution to European and world culture. 

Inna Rogatchi (C). Take This Waltz In the Warsaw Ghetto. Based on the exhibit of the POLIN Museum. The Route project. 2019. Permanent Art Collection, the Parliament of Austria.

Metaphor of Humanity

Rainer Mahlamäki shares his understanding of the role of the one of his most renowned buildings: “While working on the ( POLIN) project, I knew and realized that this museum will tell not only the story of Polish Jews, but also the story of the Jews in Europe, with those pivotal moments in it. I also knew that the museum will tell not only the history of Poland, but, crucially importantly, the history of Europe, and it will present it quite deeply. That understanding guided my approach. Since the very beginning, I knew that we were to create and to build a lighthouse. A lighthouse in the heart of Warsaw, in the heart of Poland, in the centre of Europe, which should attract all those people, including also the new generations, who would be interested to know how the history unfolded”.

Professor Rainer Mahlamäki. (C) Lahdelma & Mahlamäki Architects. With kind permission.

I asked professor Mahlamäki about the way of his work on that unique project. He smiled back to me: “The whole concept for POLIN was worked out in just a couple of weeks, with a frantic creative work going on for weeks, when all your inner being is dedicated to a sole purpose and your brain works non-stop all the time of day and night. And of course, once you are inside that non-stop whirl, you are overwhelmed with all possible solutions and ideas. Our approach was very “Finnish” one, so to say. Firstly we were analyszing the site and working on the adaptation of our ideas to the  existing environment. In this case, we were dealing with a very important, tragic and dramatic historical place in the centre of Muranow district in Warsaw, where the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising took place.  After that adaptation, we elaborated the concept focusing on functionality of the building. And after that, finally we were thinking and working on the architecture. 

We were ready with the final version of our concept just days before a project submission’s dead-line.  But what I remember very vividly even today, almost twenty years from that year 2005, is that there was indeed, a Eureka moment too. It was an idea of Yam Suf , the Splitting of  the Sea, which was found only less than ten days before the submission date. The idea of the splitting of the sea which starts from the building’s facade  and its entrance and goes throughout the building, in its curved shape which allows much more interesting – but also much more demanding, construction-wise – solutions, and which is also a metaphor, importantly”. 

Inna Rogatchi(C). The Light of the Way. Homage to the author of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews prof. Rainer Mahlamäki. Shining Souls: Champions of Humanity. 2016.

Importantly, indeed. There is nothing more universal than a metaphor in architecture, and to achieve it is the height of the profession. Rainer Mahlamäki, a genuine intellectual himself, represents in his work this very best quality in modern architecture with full authority. 

“Together with the splitting of the sea, as a core idea referring to a Jewish world and its values, a canyon  as a form came to my mind during my work on the POLIN building,  – famed architect reflects in the days of the celebration of the POLIN’s 10th anniversary. – I knew yet back in 2005 that for this kind of a lighthouse in the heart of Warsaw, for the modern time, and also thinking of the future, it has to be universal, both in meaning and in the form. The ( POLIN) building has  to be an abstract, non-figurative,  and most importantly, bearing a universal message”.  

POLIN Museum. (C) Lahdelma & Mahlamäki. With kind permission.

Studying the works of this outstanding architect during several years, being able to compare and observe, analyzing his architectural metaphors, which all are different, there are few essential qualities that commands the landscape created by Rainer Mahlamäki: laconism, purity of ideas, elegance, the intrigue of his out-of-ordinary, inventive lines. But the most special are two: mastering the light and articulating sense of continuity. Both Rainer Mahlamäki architectural trade-marks have become internationally recognized from the time of the POLIN Museum. 

Professor Mahlamäki opens a door into the essence of his concept: “A building itself, the building of POLIN very much so too, is a lab. A historical lab, in this case, and a lab of history, at the same time. It does function as both a telescope and a periscope, simultaneously. A building is not about details. A building is to convey the message, to provide the best form to do it, and still to have the message and a metaphor of its own.  Both overdoing and undergoing is very damaging in architecture, especially with regard to the buildings bearing such an extremely important public message as POLIN does. And of course, an architect working on a new building is looking also for his own creative sides of his future building, something that would bear an imprint of novelty and creativity. That’s why architecture is a very complex art”. 

Rainer Mahlamäki during his Author’s Tour POLIN: Architecture as a Book at the 10th anniversary of the Museum’s celebrations. Warsaw, September 2024. Photo: Magda Staronieyska. (C) POLIN. With kind permission.

One cannot agree more with the author of POLIN, the one of the most notable and well-known buildings in Europe and world today. The Rogatchi Foundation has awarded professor Mahlamäki for his efforts with the Humanist of the Year Award in 2017-2018, featuring him also as one of the heroes of our special Shining Souls: Champions of Humanity project at the special exhibition presented at the Finnish Parliament. Professor Mahlamäki was also awarded with the first Finlandia Prize for Architecture for his outstanding POLIN Museum in 2014, followed by the awarding him the Prince Eugen Medal by the the King of Sweden in 2017 for ‘the outstanding artistic achievements’ in Scandinavian culture, according to the highly prestigious award rules.  

POLIN celebrating its first 10th anniversary. (C) POLIN. With kind permission.

It is not without reason that POLIN has become a universal denominator today – as among historians and educators, as in a wider public context. When government officials and members of parliaments are discussing their visions and objectives for desirable projects, very often one can hear: “ We need to have our own POLIN”, in one or another country. When  at the top floors of international decision-making, discussions are held on the urgent needs of efficient public education, one can hear “We need a pan-European POLIN”. When teachers are planning some new courses in the US, Australia or Canada, one can hear “Let’s do it in the way POLIN did it”. And so on. Given the fact that we are celebrating only the first decade of this unique human effort, POLIN has become an instant champion for humanity in front of our eyes. Indeed, it does function as a lighthouse, as its architect Rainer Mahlamäki has observed in his vision. 

An outside cinema, one of many popular ongoing activities of the POLIN Museum. Warsaw. 2024. (C) POLIN. With kind permission.

Metaphorical Architecture of Ongoing Commemoration

Professor Mahlamäki recounts that “the work on the POLIN has opened a whole new direction for me”. As I described in my previous essays and lectures on memorial architecture, since 2005 onward, accomplishing the POLIN,  Rainer Mahlamäki and his Lahdelma & Mahlamäki Architects authored a very impressive, variable and consistent collection of projects of the international importance on this direction, including the  ones for the Museum hosting the National-Socialist Party Archives in Munich, the UK National Holocaust Memorial in London, the Requiem Museum of the Blockade of Leningrad, the Treblinka New Museum, the Holocaust Museum in Montreal. He was also acting as a juror and chairman of the juries for such pivotal memorial projects as the Babi Yar memorial complex and the new Holocaust Museum in Albania. The complex of buildings of The Lost Shtetl Museum in Memorial is forthcoming in Lithuania where it is anticipated with the similar eagerness that we witnessed ten years ago in Warsaw. 

The author of the POLIN Museum prof. Rainer Mahlamäki with legendary Marian Turski at the celebrations of the 10th anniversary of POLIN. Warsaw, September 2024. Photo: Magda Staronieyska. (C) POLIN Museum. With kind permission.

In Lithuania, just every single person with whom one is speaking about emerging The Lost Shtetl, smiles happily, always mentioning: “ It should be very impressive. It was created by the same architect who authored POLIN”. 

As professor Mahlamäki sees his important project now, reflecting on it from a decade-long period of time, “I consider myself very lucky as an architect . In the field of architecture, it happens very seldom when an architect is able to create something  like POLIN  – unique, but having a universal language”. 

Inna Rogatchi (C). Memory Entrance. POLIN Museum. Warsaw. The Route project. 2014.

And this is what makes it a lighthouse – in Warsaw, in Poland, in Europe, and beyond it. We all were happy and proud to have POLIN as part of our lives for the last decade, the first decade of the life of this outstanding museum, a very special institution with equal measure of mind and heart in every place of this lighthouse of humanity.  

Warsaw –  Helsinki

September – October 2024