Once a gas holder, now a concert hall, once a furnace, now an open-air music stage and cafe: the new life of an industrial complex in the 21st century, in this week’s episode of our PACE X HYPEANDHYPER series.
The Lower Vítkovice Area is a national cultural monument of industrial heritage. The complex stretching on 250,000 square meters fulfilled its original functions from the 1820s up until the 1990s—the blast furnace operated as part of this complex. Between 2007 and 2009, a decision and a subsequent program were made to reutilize this area for cultural and educational purposes. The reconstruction works were completed in 2016—since then, the former factory has operated as a hybrid community space.
In the framework of such reconstruction, they renovated the streets and created new squares, parks and parking areas in the factory site. However, the most spectacular transformation took place in the case of said blast furnace: a glass-steel extension was added on top of it, housing a cafe with a capacity of about 100 seats, a training room and an observation deck.
The old functions were also replaced by new ones: the former gas holder was transformed into a concert hall, the space below the furnaces has become an open-air music stage—with an optional roof—, and there is also an old hall which can now be used for practicing sports.
The entire refurbishment project was implemented from a budget of 1 million Czech koruna, while the plans for the reconstruction were designed by Josef Pleskot‘s architecture firm.
In our PACE X HYPEANDHYPER series, we showcase a prominent contemporary public building from the Central Eastern European region each week.
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