Bohdan Pniewski

Pniewski, popular amongst the Polish political interwar elite (he was the designer of the Brühl Palace, which was the office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, headed by Józef Beck), remained prominent in Communist Poland.

Surprisingly, "Beck's of court architect" (nadworny architekt Becka), as he was called by his enemies after 1945 due to his role in designing the palace of the hated minister, constructed his most known buildings after the war - in the People's Republic of Poland.

[3] His studies were suspended due to the First World War, in which Pniewski was involved, first as a scout and then as a soldier of the Polish Military Organisation.

But Bohdan Pniewski's war did not end in 1918, because like many young Poles his age, he decided to defend his country from the newly born Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.

He joined the Legions of Marshal Józef Piłsudski and this move soon turned out to be helpful in his career, because of the position of the former soldiers in the Second Republic.

During the treatment of his leg he met his future wife Elżbieta Dąbrowska (1900-1980) and was granted the Polish Cross of Valour for his bravery on the battlefield.

Pniewski's first work was the project for the Polish pavilion at the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts and Modern Industry, built in collaboration with Stanisław Brukalski and Lech Niemojewski in 1923.

Before the Second World War Pniewski constructed his own villa on Na Skarpie Avenue, which today hosts the Polish Academy of Sciences' Museum of the Earth, "located in the alleged premises of the Masonic Lodge designed by Szymon Bogumił Zug".

He also constructed the buildings of the Polish Radio, Szosa Krakowska settlement in the Ochota District, Dom Chłopa, and the State Archives on Hankiewicz Street.