Construction work on Warsaw’s main concert hall, with an auditorium holding more than 2,000 people, began in 1900 on the initiative of Aleksander Rajchman, editor of the cultural journal Echo Muzyczne, Teatralne i Artystyczne. The venue, designed by Karol Kozłowski on the model of nineteenth-century European concert halls, particularly the Paris Opera, was built in an eclectic style with Neo-Renaissance and Neo-Baroque elements, with sculptures of eminent composers (Beethoven, Chopin, Moniuszko, and Mozart) on its façades.
It was located in the then Warsaw’s financial centre, between Jasna, Moniuszki, and Sienkiewicza Streets. Ignacy Jan Paderewski performed at the Philharmonic’s inauguration ceremony on 5 November 1901.
Many works by contemporary Polish composers were included in the Philharmonic’s concert programmes. A 1932 concert conducted by Grzegorz Fitelberg featured Igor Stravinsky’s Petrushka (1911), Piotr Perkowski’s Sinfonietta (1927), Michał Kondracki’s Soldiers (1932), and Józef Koffler's Variations on Own Theme [=Fifteen Variations on a Twelve-Note Row], Op. 9a (1931). The same Variations by Koffler were presented at Warsaw Philharmonic again in 1936, this time – along with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92.
Seriously damaged during World War II (by a fire during the capital’s defence in September 1939 and by bombing during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944), the edifice was rebuilt in 1955 in a quite different, socialist-realist style. The two preserved original sculptures of Chopin and Moniuszko returned to the Philharmonic’s façade in 2001, for the institution’s centenary.