Hotel Forum, Kracow

Some buildings refuse to blend in. Hotel Forum on the Vistula riverfront is one of Kraków’s most imposing late-modern landmarks, a piece of Polish Brutalism that still dominates the waterline.

Designed by Janusz Ingarden and developed through the 1970s, the project was created as a major, state-era hotel in a prime position near Wawel Castle. The design has that unmistakable Forum silhouette: a long, heavy slab lifted above the ground on massive supports, curving along the river like a concrete ship coming into dock.

Construction began in 1978 and the hotel finally opened in 1988, after a decade shaped by the economic crisis of the 1980s. It operated as a hotel until 2002, and since then its life has shifted into a patchwork of temporary uses and cultural activity. Recently, its exterior was added to the register of historic monuments, recognising its architectural significance even as its future use continues to evolve.

I love Hotel Forum for the way it plays with weight and suspension. Capturing that sense of hover in concrete took time. I iterated the stance again and again so the raised body, the deep underside, and the long curve still read clearly at miniature scale. The goal was to keep the building’s mood intact: severe, futuristic, and strangely elegant when the light hits those repetitive window bands.

A small cast of a Kraków icon, made to hold a bigger story of place and time.