Architecture is about building relationships – between buildings and their surroundings, and between the people who create and use them. The exhibition adopts this perspective and explores architecture through the prism of local and international networks, professional ties and friendships put to the test by history and political choices. It reveals the strength and fragility of these connections in uncertain times.

The exhibition’s main protagonists are two female architects – Barbara Brukalska (1899–1980) and Helena Syrkus (1900–1982). Associated with the avant-garde Praesens group and the International Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM), they were among the most important figures of European modernism. Their biographies, unfolding against the backdrop of the geopolitically turbulent 20th century, run parallel and intersect repeatedly, only to take different directions under the influence of personal decisions.

The exhibition presents profiles of both architects and their work through photographs, drawings and films, many of which are being shown publicly for the first time. However, this is not a classic monographic exhibition. The stories of Brukalska and Syrkus serve as a starting point for reflection on the fate of the avant-garde in Central Europe during the turbulent 20th century, as well as on architecture as a relational field based on the flow of people and ideas. This perspective is developed by contemporary artworks created especially for this exhibition – a sound composition by Barbara Kinga Majewska and a textile by Alicja Bielawska, in which architecture and their stories are interwoven once more.

The materials presented in the exhibition come from the collections of Polish and international institutions, including mainly the collections of the Museum of Architecture in Wrocław, the Museum of Art in Łódź, the gta Archiv ETH Zurich, the Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin, the RKD-Netherlands Institute for Art History and the National Museum in Warsaw, as well as from private collections.

• INTERWOVEN. Barbara Brukalska, Helena Syrkus and the Networks of Modernism
• 25.06 - 04.10.2026

• Museum of Architecture in Wrocław, Bernardyńska str. 7

• Curators: Małgorzata Jędrzejczyk, Aleksandra Kędziorek

• Organiser: Pilecki Institute
• Main Partner of the exhibition: Museum of Architecture in Wrocław
• The exhibition was created as part of the Exercising Modernity programme.

Media Partners: TVP Kultura, Program 3 Polskiego Radia, Architektura i Biznes, Vogue Polska Living, Zwierciadło, Autoportret, Tygodnik Powszechny, Magazyn SZUM, Notes Na 6 Tygodni.