This year's prize awarded by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage Marta Cienkowska in the Architecture and Space category was won by Grzegorz Piątek, architect, book author, critic and exhibition curator. How was the award justified?
The author of books that combine a passion for history with literary skill, exploring the transformation of cities and their architectural heritage
- reads the justification for the Annual Award of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage 2025.
Grzegorz Piątek
Grzegorz Piątek was born in 1980 in Warsaw, Poland. In 2006 he graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology. Just two years later, in 2008, together with Jaroslaw Trybus, he curated the Golden Lion-winning exhibition "Hotel Polonia. The Afterlife of Buildings" in the Polish Pavilion at the 11th Venice Architecture Biennale.
Piątek is the author of a number of award-winning books related to architecture, the city and the creators of the changes taking place in these fields - his book "Sanator. The Career of Stefan Starzyński" (2016) won the Literary Award of the City of Warsaw, "The Best City in the World. Warsaw in reconstruction 1944-1949" (2020) became the inspiration for "Opera about Warsaw," and "Promised Gdynia. City, Modernism, Modernization 1920-1939" (2022) was honored with the "Nike" Readers' Choice Award. Any moment now, the W.A.B. Publishing House will publish his latest book - "Temple and Dumpster. Architecture for Life" telling the story of architecture for everyday life.
Grzegorz Piątek's latest book - "Temple and Dumpster. Architecture for life"
© W.A.B. Publishers.
Award of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage 2025
An annual award honoring Polish artists, it has been given since 1997. Its winners are recognized for lifetime achievement or special outstanding achievements of a given year.
This year the lifetimeachievement award went to Wojciech Mann, music journalist, satirist, radio and television presenter. The award in the Visual Arts category went to artist Malgorzata Mirga-Tas, while in the Culture Animation category Marcin Piotrowski, founder of the Folkowisko Festival in the village of Gorajec, was awarded. In the Theater category , Agnieszka Przepiórska, theater, film and TV series actress, was awarded, and in the Film category, the award went to the creator of the film "There are no ghosts in the apartment on Dobra" - Emi Buchwald. In the Dance category , the award went to Adam "Hefo" Stefanski, dancer, choreographer and breaking coach, and in the Music category, theVRC Choir founded by Joanna Maluga. The award for Dissemination of Culture went to Malgorzata Ziętkiewicz, a journalist and television reporter, and in the Literature category the poet Ewa Lipska was recognized. In the Folk Culture category, the award went to Wladyslawa Apolonia Prucnal, a folk artist specializing in ceramic sculpture , and in the Heritage Protection category, the Ruinersi Foundation, an informal social movement that rescues abandoned and often devastated buildings. The honorary award in the Patron of Culture category went to Katarzyna Jordan, a publisher, entrepreneur, film producer and patron of the arts, who for years has supported the development of Polish culture, arts and crafts.
The award in the Architecture category in past years was won by Robert Konieczny (2011), Tomasz Konior (2016), Bolesław Stelmach (2017), Piotr Lewicki and Kazimierz Łatak (2018), Witold Cęckiewicz (2021), Krzysztof Ingarden (2022), Marek Budzyński (2023) and Aleksandra Wasilkowska (2024), among others.
