Hotel Forum, Kraków

£45.00

Hotel Forum, Kraków

A Brutalist survivor, finely detailed in concrete by Spaceplay.

Hotel Forum, Kraków

Name: Hotel Forum, Kraków
Brand: Spaceplay
SKU: MINI_080
Price: 45.00 GBP
Availability: InStock

£45.00

Solid Cast-Concrete Miniature Model
Size: 3cm high, 10cm wide, 5cm deep
Scale: 1:1250 (approx)

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Keep Kracow close with a concrete model that holds your river walks and nights out. Whether it was a first trip or your student years, to honour the Vistula's boldest Brutalist landmark.

Made to order and shipped within 30 days

Designed and made in my UK studio

Comes gift-boxed for the perfect concrete gift

Express processing available for UK orders

Shipping

All Spaceplay models are made to order and are usually made and posted within 30 days.

All orders are sent using a tracked postal service, and you’ll receive tracking details once your model has been posted.

UK orders usually arrive within 3 working days after posting. International orders usually arrive within 8 working days after posting, although customs and local postal services can sometimes cause delays.

If you need your order for a specific date, please let me know before ordering and I’ll do my best to help.

UK customers can also select Express Shipping at checkout to have their model made and posted within 8 days.

Returns

You can return unused and undamaged items within 30 days of delivery for a refund, excluding return postage costs.

If your model arrives damaged, faulty, or incorrect, please email me within 14 days of delivery with your order number and photos of the issue. I’ll arrange a free replacement to be made and posted to you.

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Building Information

Location: Kraków, Poland
Architect: Janusz Ingarden
Completed: Opened 1988
Status: Former hotel, closed 2002; register of historic monuments

Brief Overview:
Hotel Forum was planned as a flagship, late-communist era hotel for Kraków, positioned dramatically on a bend in the Vistula. Its defining move is structural and theatrical at once: a long, curved accommodation block lifted above ground level, creating an undercroft and a powerful horizontal presence on the skyline. Over time, the building has shifted from hospitality to a more improvised second life, while continuing to stand as one of the clearest expressions of Polish late modernism and Brutalist massing in the city.

Making my concrete model

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.

Hotel Forum, Kraków

The Hotel Forum miniature concrete model is made for anyone who has spent a summer night on the Vistula riverbank beneath it. Janusz Ingarden's late-communist hotel opened in 1988 on a bend of the river opposite Wawel Castle, its long accommodation block raised above an open undercroft. It closed as a hotel in 2002 and found a second life under giant advertising banners and pop-up bars. It's now on the register of historic monuments. This concrete model of Hotel Forum Kraków captures that long, lifted form at 10cm, a piece of concrete art for a desk or shelf. It's for Kraków locals and visitors, fans of Polish modernism and lovers of Brutalist architecture, and it's a gift with a real sense of the city. Each miniature concrete building is hand-cast in solid concrete.