One Unique European Metro Station Has Been Transformed Into A Stunning Underground Library

The next time you're riding the subway take a look around at your fellow passengers. How many are reading books? How many are staring at their phones? It's a pretty safe bet you'll see more people sitting mesmerized by their phone screens than engaged in a good book. In fact, our lives have become so intertwined with our phones that behaviorists have identified a phenomenon known as nomophobia. In a nutshell, nomophobia is a broad term to describe anxiety related to not being able to use your phone. It's such an acute situation that librarians in Warsaw — one of the top ranked city vacation spots in Europe — are taking a unique approach, creating lending libraries in active subway stations to coax metro riders to put down their phones and pick up a book instead. 

Located in the Targówek neighborhood of Warsaw, Poland — a destination Rick Steves recommends for adventurous foodies — the city's first subterranean library, Metroteka (named after biblioteka, the Polish word for library), opened in 2025. An express branch of Targówek Library, the 1,600-square-foot space has about 16,000 titles available to borrow, but it's not just a walk-in-walk-out experience. The venue features a bright, modern decor and a vertical garden where herbs like oregano and basil grow alongside nasturtiums and pansies. There are two separate reading areas, one for adults and one for children, and open space to accommodate readings and events. "Our dream is for Metroteka to become an educational and cultural centre, and not just a place where you borrow your books from," Grażyna Strzelczak-Batkowska, deputy director of Targówek Library told The Guardian.

Metroteka encourages patrons to linger in the communal area, enjoy complimentary drinks, play a board game, and even borrow a laptop. Books are embedded with scannable chips, so borrowing a title, or three, is as easy as running the chip through an express checkout reader. Borrowers can return books in person or drop them in a 'round-the-clock street-level parcel locker. There's nothing precious or intimidating about it. "I always joke that books are not made of glass," Strzelczak-Batkowska, told The Guardian. "You can just pop in, grab a few, throw them on a self-checkout machine, and that's it, you're out on a new adventure."

Warsaw's Metroteka initiative is a real-life example of the well-known saying, necessity is the mother of invention. The city was searching for a place to expand its library at the same time the Warsaw Metro was struggling with an excess inventory of commercial and retail space. The first location, at Kondratowicza Station on the M2 line of the metro, was so well received that officials are eyeing expansion into other metro locations. Organizers are hoping the innovative bring-it-to-the-people philosophy will reverse a decades-long decline in the percentage of Polish citizens who read for pleasure, a trend accelerated by the emergence of smartphones, but rooted in the fact that 70% of Poland's (the country is one of the few places where Anthony Bourdain never filmed) libraries were destroyed during World War II. "We had several generations that did not see their parents or grandparents in front of a wall of books," National Library of Poland director Tomasz Makowski told The Guardian, adding, "It's not a shrine, but a place where you can spend time freely, take part in discussions, public consultations, or meet people."