Neon Museum Warsaw Revives Cold War Era Signs, Drawing Over 100,000 Visitors Annually

Warsaw's Neon Museum, founded in 2012 by Polish-British photographer Ilona Karwińska and graphic designer David Hill, has sparked a resurgence of interest in Cold War-era neon signs, attracting more than 100,000 visitors yearly. The museum's collection, which began with Karwińska's 2006 photographic project, now includes restored signs from Poland's postwar 'neonisation' period starting in 1956, when the state-run Reklama company produced luminous designs by artists like Jan Mucharski and Tadeusz Rogowski. These signs, originally symbols of Soviet-era modernization and optimism, fell into disrepair after communism's collapse in the late 1980s, with many discarded or left to rust. The founders have since renovated and returned signs to original sites, such as a 4-meter-tall red cockerel and the Syrenka mermaid, Warsaw's symbol. A new generation, including graphic designer Mariusz Lewczyk, has embraced neon, creating installations like 'It's nice to see you' on the Gdański Bridge. The museum also features signs from across the former Eastern Bloc, with plans to open a second location in Budapest. Neon's history dates to 1898 with the discovery of noble gases by British chemists William Ramsay and Morris Travers, commercialized by French engineer Georges Claude in 1913, and introduced to Warsaw in 1926, though few survived World War II destruction. During martial law from 1981 to 1983, authorities turned off the lights as a political tool, plunging the city into darkness. Hill notes that older visitors often become emotional, recalling personal memories associated with the signs.