Grzegorz Piątek

(b. 1980) – a writer, journalist, curator and editor.

A graduate of the Architecture Faculty of the Warsaw University of Technology, tied to the capital city since his birth. His work takes up themes connected with city planning, the social role of space and Warsaw studies. An architect by profession, he is also a historian and architecture critic.

Before he made his debut as an independent writer, Grzegorz Piątek worked as an editor and columnist for ARCHITEKTURA-murator and Gazeta Stołeczna. He also curated exhibitions connected with architecture and had some success in this field – his joint exhibition with Jarosław Trybuś, Hotel Polonia: The Afterlife of Buildings, presented at the 11th Biennale of Architecture in Venice (2008), received the Golden Lion.

In 2016, he published his first book on his own, ‘Sanator. Kariera Stefana Starzyńskiego’ (The Sanator: The Career of Stefan Starzyński). Piątek aimed to verify the legends and myths circling around the figure of the Warsaw mayor and represent him accurately, based on archival sources. A similar approach, based on an insightful investigation and an analysis of historical records, accompanied the author in writing his later historical essays. In a publication of 2020, ‘Najlepsze miasto świata. Warszawa w odbudowie 1944–1949’ (The Best City in the World: Warsaw Under Reconstruction, 1944-49), Piątek reconstructs the process of raising the city from the ruins, describing both the enthusiasm of the architects and their concerns. The book was the basis for an opera by Cezary Duchnowski and a libretto by Beniamin Bukowski, ‘Opera o Warszawie. Najlepsze miasto świata’ (An Opera about Warsaw: The Best City in the World), which premiered in September 2025.

A watershed came with Piątek’s 2023 publication, ‘Gdynia obiecana. Miasto, modernizm, modernizacja 1920–1939’ (The Promised Gdynia: The City, Modernism, Modernisation 1920–39); it was his first book that was not about Warsaw. Now the author looked at the myths accompanying the process of building Gdynia, dredging up lesser known tales from the history of how the city was shaped.

Grzegorz Piątek is among the most frequently awarded contemporary essayists. For his debut he received the City of Warsaw Literary Award (2017), and was nominated for the Jan Długosz Award (2017) and the Oskar Halecki Award in the Historical Book of the Year category (2017). The Best City in the World: Warsaw Under Reconstruction, 1944-49 was honoured three times: with the City of Warsaw Literary Award (2021), the Mayor of Warsaw Architecture Award (2021) and the Kazimierz Moczarski City of Warsaw Historical Award (2021); it was also a finalist for the Nike Literary Award (2021). For ‘Niezniszczalny. Bohdan Pniewski – architekt salonu i władzy’ (Indestructible: Bohdan Pniewski – Architect of the Salon and Ruler), Piątek was nominated for the Juliusz Upper Silesian Literary Award (2022), and his next publication, The Promised Gdynia: The City, Modernism, Modernisation 1920–39, brought him three awards: the Polityka Passport (2023), Gdynia Literary Award (2023) and Nike Readers’ Award (2023). In 2024, he was honoured with the Bronze Gloria Artis Service to Culture Medal. His works have appeared in English, Russian, French, German and Spanish.