Neon Museum

The Neon Museum in Warsaw is the only museum in Poland devoted to documenting and preserving the neon signs of the People's Republic era. Since 2012 it has occupied a red-brick hall in the Soho Factory, a revitalised industrial complex in Praga-Poludnie on the right bank of the Vistula. After the political thaw of 1956 the communist government launched the so-called neonisation of Warsaw, in which leading graphic designers and architects created elaborate light signs for cafes, cinemas and shops, to give the city a modern face after the war damage. After 1989, most of them disappeared quickly. In the museum, restored originals like the cat of the Praha cinema or the volleyball-player figure glow again in the dim space and, especially after dark, draw every eye through the window front.