Special project · Fundacja Piwnica Poetycka ENS
Over 20 years of history in one archive
Zanussi, Falk, Zamachowski and Krafftówna have all sat here at the same table as the audience. Memories of those evenings were scattered across five places online. I gathered them, sorted them evening by evening and built a new website for them from scratch.
- Client
- Fundacja Piwnica Poetycka ENS
- Date
- October and November 2026
- Tools
- Next.js, Sanity, Cloudflare, Python, PL and EN
Before and after in ninety seconds. The previous site and the new one, the same pages filmed at the same pace.
Five places online, one drawer
Photos, posters and recordings, gathered with great care over the years, lived on three Facebook pages, a YouTube channel and the previous website. Most of the work was the part nobody sees: collecting everything and matching every photo to the right evening, date and guest. Only then could the website be built.
Fundacja Piwnica Poetycka ENS
Page by page
Drag to compare
With respect for the previous site, which served the foundation well for years. Move the slider to see the same content today.
Timeline
Anna Bojarska names all her work “Musicality for Life” and dedicates it to Kalina Jędrusik and Stanisław Dygat.
On 16 October the first Piwnica Poetycka takes place in Żoliborz: poems by Jerzy Ficowski, live music, around a hundred people.
The evenings travel across Warsaw venues and the fiftieth is celebrated at Fort Sokolnickiego.
The foundation opens Kredens pod Oknami in Gocławek, the salon where the evenings take place to this day.
The new website: a memory album, guest pages, a year by year chronicle and a panel the foundation edits on its own.
At the same table as the audience
and many other guests, each with their own page in the archive
The work in four acts
Act I
Collecting
Exporting data from three Facebook pages, a YouTube channel and the previous WordPress site. Over twelve thousand files, each with a date and a description.
Act II
Sorting
Every photo matched to the right evening, date and guest. A Python script found duplicates; every evening was decided by hand.
Act III
Building
A new site from scratch in Next.js on Cloudflare, in Polish and English: a year by year album, a chronicle, guest pages, a name index, search and the oral history archive of Osiedle Młodych.
Act IV
Handover
A Sanity panel where the foundation adds evenings, photos and posters on its own, plus a step by step guide for the foundation.
Step by step
The whole project in the order it happened, from the first conversation to launch.
- 01
Conversation and decision
Anna Bojarska-Urbańska and I went through the previous site and the foundation's needs. Instead of patching WordPress, we chose a new site built from scratch, with a panel the foundation runs on its own.
- 02
Backup and documentation
A full backup of files, database and email. Almost a hundred screenshots of every page on desktop and mobile, plus twelve scroll recordings. The previous site stayed online until the day the new one launched.
- 03
Collecting the archive
Exporting data from three Facebook pages, a YouTube channel and all WordPress content: photos, posters, evening descriptions and recordings.
- 04
Sorting
Over twelve thousand files. A Python script caught duplicates, and every photo was matched to the right evening, date and guest. The longest stage and the foundation of everything else.
- 05
The memory album
430 evenings and 4,043 photos arranged year by year, from the newest back to 2004. Any photo opens full screen.
- 06
Design in the language of the place
The look grew out of Kredens itself: a velvet curtain, a neon sign, a tear off calendar, posters on a string, a dresser with drawers. First a mockup, then a usability review and a rebuild.
- 07
Building the site
Next.js, in Polish and English. Guest pages, a chronicle from 2019 to 2025, topic pages (Kalina Jędrusik, Ficowski, Młynarski), the oral history archive of Osiedle Młodych, search, a name index and larger text for older visitors.
- 08
A panel for the foundation
Sanity: the foundation adds evenings, photos and posters itself, without touching code. Plus a step by step PDF guide.
- 09
Launch
Cloudflare on the foundation's own accounts, the piwnicapoetycka.pl domain, link previews for sharing and event data for Google.
- 10
Telling the story
A before and after carousel on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram in Polish and English, a before and after film in three languages, and this page.
Memory now has an address
Poetry evenings and concerts still take place at Kredens pod Oknami. The memory album can be browsed year by year, from the newest to the oldest.
I gave this website to the foundation as a gift, with gratitude to Anna Bojarska-Urbańska and the people who create Piwnica with her.