National Archive, Krakow, Poland
The National Archive in Krakow is clad with countless colorful blocks. What looks like tiles is actually a sophisticated architectural concrete façade.
120 square meters of formliner created this unique look on the National Archive in the Polish city of Krakow: boxes of varying sizes clad the concrete cube. The color change between yellow, red, blue and purple lightens up the windowless square building. It is connected to an annex, using a glass shell to create the greatest possible contrast: the glass façade has in fact been placed in front of the actual façade, made from precast concrete elements.
The building’s innovative design came from Polish firm PKZ Arkona. The planners created two buildings. The 300 square meters of concrete was designed using formliners from the RECKLI SELECT series. The 2/122 Yukon design was used to create a rocky, uneven texture. The second building made use of precast concrete elements with the 2/90 Travertin texture creating an exposed concrete look complete with irregular air pockets.
The precast concrete elements were produced by precast plant KROE before being installed on the construction site as a curtain façade. The exposed concrete is class 3 and class 4.
