Where did the idea come from?

I’m an architect — I work in an interdisciplinary way, not just buildings but interiors, and now I had the opportunity to create a mural for the Jabłkowski Brothers’ Department Store, who came to me wanting to do something with the courtyard at Chmielna 21. They wanted to make the space more attractive. And because I’ve always been fascinated by pre-war Warsaw, I thought of these postcards — a series from around 1905 to 1910 called *Warsaw of the Future*. It was a trend across Europe at the time: publishers would take a familiar cityscape and add collaged elements — balloons, propeller-driven bicycles, cars, trams lifted by airships — to imagine what a modern future might look like. Warsaw had four of them, showing views the tsarist censors permitted. I thought: what if the wall became a portal? Something through which old Warsaw bleeds into the present — or the other way around. The store itself is so deeply rooted in that era that the connection felt natural. The women in the mural wear fashions that would have been sold in their halls.

How long did the whole project take?

The idea came together over a year ago. It wasn’t always a tram — early sketches featured a bus, but it didn’t feel right, not evocative enough of that pre-war world. Then I discovered a fully restored historic tram at the Warsaw tram depot. We had it photographed as the visual reference for the composition. Getting it to look as though it was flying *out* of the building, threading between the windows — that took considerable work. We also wanted to unveil it during a time of year when the city is at its most vibrant, so we were patient. The actual painting took about three or four days, carried out by Good Looking Studio, who executed the whole thing on the wall. I’m the author of the concept and the project — they brought it to life, and I’m very happy with that collaboration.

Is there anything in the mural that most people miss?

You know, I’ve made peace with the fact that once something goes out into the world — a building, an interior, a mural — it stops being entirely mine. It’s like a child you raise and then send off. People take it and make it their own. My intention was simple: I wanted an “oh wow” moment. I wanted everyone who walked through that gate to want to take a selfie. What I didn’t predict was the scale of it — five, maybe ten thousand people a day. I genuinely didn’t see that coming.

Only positive reactions?

That’s what surprised me most. Usually with public art, you can count on at least 20, sometimes 50 percent of people saying it should have been done differently, that they know better. Here, I couldn’t find a single negative opinion. And that means a great deal to me personally, because I’m a Varsovian through and through — generation after generation, probably six generations back. To be able to do something for this city that people actually love is very moving.

Is another mural on the way?

Architecture is a service profession. Someone comes to me with a space and a wish, and every space demands something different — you have to understand its history, its proportions, its context, and then think carefully about the effect you want to create on the people who encounter it. That feeling of something about to fly right at you — achieving that takes real thought. So we’ll see. In the meantime, I want to thank the Jabłkowski Brothers’ Department Store for believing in my idea — and Good Looking Studio for bringing it to life on the wall.