Warsaw Fotoplastikon
Audience at Warsaw Fotoplastikon, 2012
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| Address | 51 Jerusalem Avenue Warsaw Poland |
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| Coordinates | 52°13′44″N 21°00′30″E / 52.228818°N 21.008456°E |
| Owner | Museum of the Warsaw Uprising |
| Designation | Polish Register of Monuments |
| Type | Stereoscopic |
| Capacity | 24 |
| Opened | 1905 |
| Website | |
| http://fotoplastikonwarszawski.pl | |
The Warsaw Fotoplastikon is a stereoscopic theatre based on the Kaiserpanorama system of rotating stereoscopic images located in Warsaw, Poland. Operating at the same location since 1905, it is the oldest stereoscopic theatre in Europe still in business at its original location. Today it is operates as a branch of the Museum of the Warsaw Uprising.
The Warsaw Fotoplastikon has 24 fixed stereoscopic viewports. A visitor sits at a viewport around the circumference of the machine. Each picture, from a sequence of 48 three dimensional stereo images, appears for 15 seconds before moving on to the next. Above each viewport is a window which displays an illuminated card with a brief description of the scene below. The scenes are arranged by themes, such as a travelogue to distant lands or depictions of historic events. Recorded music related to the theme plays in the background. The Fotoplastikon uses a slightly modified version of the Kaiserpanorama peepshow system, differing in having 24 viewports instead of 25 in the Kaiserpanorama system.
The Warsaw Fotoplastikon was constructed in 1901. It was first shown at a temporary location but moved to its permanent location in a small theatre at the back of an inner courtyard of the Hoserów Townhouse Apartment Building at 51 Jerusalem Avenue soon after the building was built in 1905. The Warsaw Fotoplastikon is a Polish adaptation of the Kaiserpanorama peepshow technology invented in the 1890s which was popular across Europe before the growth of motion picture theatres. The Fotoplastikon has been operated at the 51 Jerusalem Avenue location since it opened, owned and run by a series of families more or less continuously since 1905 making it the oldest active in situ peepshow in Europe.
In 1973 the new owner was Joseph Skinny. After his death in 1980, the Fotoplastikon closed but was relaunched by Skinny's his grandson, Thomas Chudy, in 1992. The Fotoplastikon was entered in the Polish Register of Monuments in 1987. In 2008 Skinny leased the device, along with a collection of 3,000 slides to the Museum of the Warsaw Uprising. In December 2012 the museum bought the equipment and has continued to operate it in the original location. In September 2013 Fotoplastikon gained an additional room, next to its original site adjacent to the Hoserow courtyard.
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Wikipedia