Prof. Bolesław Stelmach was dismissed from his position as acting director of the National Institute of Architecture by Minister of Culture Marta Cienkowska. Until a new appointment process for the director of the NIAiU is conducted, Łukasz Mieszkowski will replace him in this position.
As a reminder, in December 2025, Minister of Culture and National Heritage Marta Cienkowska annulled the competition for the position of Director of the National Institute of Architecture and Urban Planning due to inconsistencies in the competition rules, which provided for two voting procedures. According to § 2, section 9 of the Commission’s Rules of Procedure, its members were to vote on each candidate, while § 2, section 10 stipulated that each member of the commission could cast one vote for a candidate of their choice.
Questioning the contradictory provisions of the competition rules for the position of Director of the National Institute of Architecture and Urban Planning, Małgorzata Tomczak, editor-in-chief of the publication *Architektura & Biznes*, sent a press inquiry to Marta Cienkowska, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, with a formal objection to the conduct of the competition and a request for clarification regarding the inaccuracies in the voting procedure. In response to the aforementioned inquiry, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage announced on December 11, 2025, that the competition for the position of Director of the National Institute of Architecture and Urban Planning had been canceled.
Since then , the former director, Professor Bolesław Stelmach, had been serving as acting Director of the NIAiU. After less than 9 months, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage announced the dismissal of Prof. Bolesław Stelmach from his position.
Bolesław Stelmach Dismissed from His Position as Acting Director of the NIAiU
A statement from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage explains the reason for the dismissal of Prof. Bolesław Stelmach from his position as acting Director of the National Institute of Architecture and Urban Planning:
The Institute’s former director, Prof. Bolesław Stelmach, was dismissed due to failure to fulfill his administrative duties, including the failure to submit the institution’s financial report for 2025.
Łukasz Mieszkowski Named New Acting Director of the NIAiU
According to a statement released by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (MKiDN), the new acting director will be Dr. Łukasz Mieszkowski —a historian, doctor of historical sciences, and visual artist.
Łukasz Mieszkowski is a graduate of the Institute of History at the University of Warsaw and the Faculty of Graphic Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw; he is also a Fulbright scholar and the author and host of documentary programs devoted to history. He specializes in 20th-century history, the history of memory, architecture, and the design of memorial sites and public spaces. At the “Anthropos” doctoral school of the Institute of Art History at the Polish Academy of Sciences (IPAN), he defended his doctoral dissertation titled “Dragons and Lice: Poland During the Plague of 1918–1923.”
From 2013 to 2022, he worked as a designer at an architectural firm. From 2025 to 2026, he served as deputy director for history in public space at the Witold Pilecki Institute of Solidarity and Courage in Warsaw. Co-creator of exhibitions and architectural projects, including the Commemoration of the Ringelblum Archive in Warsaw and the Museum and Memorial Site in Sobibór, which received First Prize in the International Architecture and Landscape Competition (2013), the EMYA 2024 Special Mention, and the “Sybilla 2023” Award. He is the author of books and academic publications.
Łukasz Mieszkowski will serve as acting Director of the NIAiU until a proper appointment procedure for a new director of the National Institute of Architecture and Urban Planning is carried out. The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage has not announced when or in what form this procedure will take place.
