National Centre for Culture

“Pociąg do czytania” (a play on words: a train to reading, or a passion for reading) was a campaign by the National Centre for Culture (Narodowe Centrum Kultury) and Polish State Railways (PKP S.A.), part of the National Reading Development Programme 2.0. The reading stand travelled across Poland: on consecutive summer Fridays it stopped at Warszawa Wschodnia, Katowice, Gdynia Główna, Kraków Główny and Wrocław Główny, and later also at Sopot Centrum. At each stop it unfolded in the main hall from morning till evening, and local libraries ran their own activities in it. Its heart is a set of bookcases shaped like the letters C, Z and Y, followed by an ellipsis of round shelves on low wooden plinths. Together they spell CZY..., an open question and the sign of the identity the whole project is built on, readable from across a busy station hall. Around them, deckchairs, armchairs, floor cushions, rugs and plants turned a piece of the hall into a reading room: passengers waiting for their train browsed new books from a mobile library, wrote in a Travel Book and recommended reads to others, while children joined literary quizzes and art workshops. A tote bag and a book sleeve were designed in the same CZY... identity.