Open City

Trejaż enters into dialogue with the nearby pillars along Filaretów Street — the concrete girders of an unfinished overpass that have been covered in wild ivy for decades. There, vegetation took over the abandoned structure spontaneously; in Jakub Szczęsny’s installation, the building material is used in a way that allows it to be given over to plants and the local community from the outset.

Jakub Szczęsny – the first Polish architect whose project, the Keret House, became part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. For 16 years, he was a member of the Centrala architectural group, and since 2016 he has run his own practice. He designs both one-of-a-kind single-family houses and prefabrication systems. He also advises private clients, institutions and NGOs on investment strategies and the development of programmes for artists’ residencies. A significant part of his practice operates at the intersection of architecture and art: since 2007, Szczęsny has designed installations for public spaces in locations around the world, from Europe to Western Australia, the United States, India and Kazakhstan.

He is also involved in promoting architecture to a wider audience, writing and appearing in television programmes, including Polska dobrze zaprojektowana (TVN), Stadiony atakują (Domo+) and Design Dream for IKEA (Polsat). Szczęsny has been a visiting lecturer at GSAPP, FAU, MOME and the Bezalel School of Architecture, and teaches a studio as part of the ASK course at the Faculty of Architecture of the Warsaw University of Technology. The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw has published two of his books, Welcome to a World Without Architects (2021) and Shelters, Niches and Enclaves (2023), while in 2025 Wielka Litera published his latest book, Luxury vs. Simple Living.