EUROPEUM - European Culture Centre

• Name — EUROPEUM – European Culture Centre • Native Name — EUROPEUM – Ośrodek Kultury Europejskiej • Location — Sikorski Square 6, Kraków, Poland • Type — Art museum • Accreditation — Kraków National Museum • Key Holdings — The Preaching of St. John the Baptist, Pieter Brueghel the Younger • Website — Europeum

The museum's building, an old granary from the 17th century, is located in Kraków's Old Town (Stare Miasto) in proximity to a Capuchin monastery. After World War II it became property of the National Museum and in 1969 held a furniture storehouse. The establishment of the EUROPEUM here was part of a plan to revitalize the area around Sikorski Square and is in line with the National Museum's policy of decentralizing exhibition spaces which it had followed since its establishment in 1879. Originally planned as a museum of contemporary art, its final purpose is the result of a lack of exhibition space in the renovated museum of the Princes Czartoryski Foundation in Pijarska street. From 2008 to 2013 the building underwent substantial renovation and reconstruction works including conservation and insulation of the facades and foundations, replacement of floors and the roof and new electrical, heating water and waste water systems. The premises were cleared of barracks, new pavements were laid and a lapidarium of several hundred architectural fragments from old buildings in Kraków was created behind the museum. Total costs for the restoration works amounted to 9 million PLN of which 4.7 million came from the National Fund for the Restoration of Historic Buildings and Monuments in Krakow.