You came to Warsaw and it’s raining? Well you still can spend your time here well and enjoy some history and some design while you’re at it. Everybody likes colours, lights and good typography. A great place where you can see all of that is Warsaw Neon Museum located in Soho Factory in Praga District. Trust us, your Instagram will thank you for the visit.

Neon lights came to life in 1989 in London when two british chemists, sir William Ramsay and Morris W. Travers, discovered neon gas. After obtaining pure neon from the atmosphere, they explored its properties using an “electrical gas-discharge” tube that was similar to the tubes used for neon signs today. Neon lights were named for neon, a noble gas which gives off a popular orange light, but other gases and chemicals are used to produce other colors, such as hydrogen (red), helium (yellow), carbon dioxide (white), and mercury (blue). Neon tubes can be fabricated in curving artistic shapes, to form letters or pictures.

 

About the museum

The museum located in Warsaw Praga Distict is the first neon oriented museum in Poland. It was created to document and preserve neon signs of Cold War era. The place is not big but there are many excellent exhibits. The permanent collection contains hundreds of neon signs and other electro-graphic artefacts, many of which were designed by the great artists of the age who were responsible for the world-famous Polish Poster School. It’s undeniably a fascinating and eye-pleasing gallery. The museum is responsible for renovating and reparing old neon signs as well. After you leave the building in which the museum is located, and walk around the Soho Factory, you’ll find more renovated exhibits from post-war era such as Warszawa Wschodnia sign.

In conclusion

The Warsaw Neon Museum is said to be one of the most instagrammable places in Warsaw. It doesn’t matter if you’re on a hunt for a perfect selfie spot or not, you’ll most definitely appreciate the beauty of polish neon signs. It’s a great place to visit if you’re looking for some tourist attractions off the beaten track. But it’s just as interesting for the locals as it is for tourists.

You don’t need much time to visit the museum. It took us  less than 30 minutes to walk around and spend some time admiring numerous examples of  good design and typography. Our favourites include the Warsaw Mermaid, neon sign from Jaś & Małgosia café and Berlin restaurant. There’s some magic in those bright, colourful signs. Looking at them we felt nostalgic for the times of our parents’ youth. We’re glad that neon signs are becoming trendy again and there’s more and more of them appearing on the streets of our city. Some of the newest ones can be found in Hala Koszyki, which we described here. We highly recommend visiting the Neon Museum.

 

 

The industrial Soho Factory where the museum is located is a pretty cool place in itself, so be sure to walk around and see what you can find. There are some cafes, restaurants and little designer shops. Sometimes interesting events are held there as well.

 

[Where] ul. Mińska 25 Soho Factory Budynek 55

[When] Open monday to sunday, excluding tuesdays. Normaly from 12 to 17, on saturdays closes an hour later and on sundays opens an hour earlier.

[How much] Tickets are 12 PLN, discount ticket for kids and students is 10 PLN.