“Repulsive, dirty, evil” | Wrocław retold
26.09-22.12.2025
18:00
Wrocław Museum of Architecture
free entry
The main subject of the exhibition “Repulsive, dirty, evil” is the Wrocław bus station on Sucha Street, demolished a decade ago – a building whose history reflects many of the socio-economic problems faced for decades by “regained cities” such as Wrocław. The station, designed by Wiesław Dobrowolski, was built on the site of the so-called Małpi Gaj (Monkey Grove) – the partially overgrown remains of a park surrounding the former Church of the Savior. In the early 1970s, it was decided to develop this area and build a modern bus station here. The competition announced at that time, which was won by Dobrowolski's design, marked the beginning of one of the most unfortunate investment processes in the post-war history of the city.
Construction of the complex began in 1974 and lasted... over 20 years. Successive changes in concept, budget constraints, and technological problems meant that the completed facility bore little resemblance to the original modernist design. The few solutions that were implemented as planned were quickly taken out of service because they were difficult to maintain. To make matters worse, early capitalism filled the station with garish advertisements and the smell of oscypek cheese sold from blankets. The entrenched “mediocrity” overshadowed the original idea and potential: the discreet elegance of the structure expanding upwards and the expressive openwork roof, whose beams pierced through the side walls of the pavilion. After less than two decades of operation, degraded and widely disliked, the would-be monument of modernism was demolished, giving way to a shopping center.
The first part of the exhibition—nostalgic and archival—documents the fate of the station through facts, oral histories, and artistic interpretations of memories. The second part takes a speculative perspective and asks: what if the fate of the building had turned out to be a success story instead of a disaster?
Event as part of the exhibition “Repulsive, Dirty, Evil,” co-organized with the Museum of Architecture in Wrocław.
*MIASTOmovie recommends – an event as part of the project: “Wrocław retold. Film and architectural narratives about a city reborn”. The project is funded by the Municipality of Wrocław as part of the initiative “Wrocław – a city of dialogue, solidarity, and reconciliation.”
Artists
Aleksandra Czupkiewicz
A graduate of the Faculty of Architecture at Wrocław University of Technology. Exhibition designer, author of books on post-war architects (Jan Szpakowicz, Leszek Zdek, Stefan Müller, Witold Lipiński). Co-initiator of cataloguing service pavilions in housing estates from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, which she discussed at the AIA Center for Architecture (New York), Viper Gallery (Prague), and the Wrocław Museum of Architecture. She writes for Architektura-Murator and Autoportret. She has published in Kwartalnik RZUT, Vogue, ERA21, and Bauwelt. Since 2015, she has been designing at Maćków Pracownia Projektowa.
Michał Kowalczys
A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk and the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław. In his artistic practice, he explores issues related to his own identity, using autofiction as a critical tool. His works use words as artistic material, combining avant-garde traditions of spoken performance with a queer perspective.
Ksenia Makała
Visual artist and designer. Graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice and the Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice. Author of installations, videos, and stage designs. In her work, she explores the interdependence of humans and physical space in radically changing times. Her practice is based on experience and observation.
Kacper Wiatrak
A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław, visual artist. Co-founder of the Pracowni Serwis Gallery in the south of Wrocław and member of the Zbiór collective. He works with painting on a daily basis, but also creates objects and digital works. Inspired by the tradition of genre painting, he juxtaposes everyday experiences with surreal contemporary reality. Drawing on psychology, sociology, and politics, he creates works that comment on the relationships between the individual and society, the intimate and the public, seriousness and absurdity. With the help of irony, counterpoint, and an inadequate style, these works become a contrasting medium—a tool for comparative analysis, essential in the process of seeing.
Łukasz Wojciechowski
Architect, works at the Faculty of Architecture of the Wrocław University of Technology, co-author of, among others, the design of the Wrocław Contemporary Museum and the Regional Business Tourism Center in Wrocław. Curator and designer of exhibitions, e.g., “Exhaust Architecture” (2019) and “Jan Szpakowicz. Elementary Space” (2021). He is the author of books such as: “In the Rearview Mirror” (2014), “The Architecture of Rational Europe” (2019), “A Walk Through Architecture” (2024), as well as comics created in AutoCAD: “Ville Nouvelle” (2020), “Soleil Mécanique” (2021), “Dum-dum” (2023), “Loin de Paris” (2025).