Multifunctional Building Konventná

The architectural competition realized by the investors assessed that the building coverage ratio positively influences and complements the addressed area, shaping and consolidating the spaces of the street and courtyards.
The building engages with the street by adhering to the building line. In the courtyard, it adapts to the lighting conditions of the space. The edge of the street cornice could not be fully maintained due to hygiene standards of lighting technology, arising from the residential functions of spaces on the opposite side.
A key architectural question for the multifunctional building on Konventná Street is the choice of approaches that, on one hand, respond to the historicizing context of the construction site, its immediate surroundings, and adjacent streets, and which simultaneously clearly identify its architecture as contemporary.
Neoclassical, Neo-Renaissance, and eclectic architectures of this environment share several distinctive common features, enhanced by a unified vocabulary of architectural morphological elements. The high row of façade beams (originating primarily from the common large construction floor heights of the time) relates to the modularity of the window axes (verticalizing these beams arranged side by side), and a pronounced unified tectonic horizontal framework. This consists of layering the ground floor as a plinth base, supporting a decorated zone of the 2nd and 3rd floors with a piano nobile and the 4th floor with lingering ornamentation, as well as continuing onto the 5th, 6th, and 7th floors in the sloped roof. Its inclination and slope fully correspond with the surrounding roofs characteristic of the Old Town. These are all architectures of solid wall surfaces with openings. These openings (windows) are generally richly relief-decorated according to the tectonic hierarchy in the sense of a classicizing canon. This design attempts to interpret the characteristic "richness" of the window using contemporary tools, abstracting upwards.
The rich relief of the façades is unifyingly characteristic of this environment. The effect of the chosen plasticity is enhanced by the fact that due to the relatively narrow streets, these façades are usually perceived from sharp angles. They are all architectures of plastered surfaces.
The site of the proposed building is unique in that it is flanked by facades that are diametrically different. On the right is the aforementioned historicizing, highly relief-rich architecture of a high order. On the left, there is a residential building of a rational non-decorative character from the 1950s to 1960s, with a completely non-relief street façade and standard floor heights. It remains a solid building with a corresponding expression for its time.
The architectural ambition of the proposed infill on the street side is the interpretation of the fundamental tectonic and character features of the surrounding historicizing architecture. Without directly citing their historical stylistic elements – that is, using expressive elements of contemporary architecture and its vocabulary.
Equally important is the mediating mission of the architecture of this gap between the smooth, unarticulated and “non-tectonic” architecture of the left neighbor and the richly decorated plastic relief and pronounced tectonics of the architecture on the right side. The new construction is to be identically contemporary. At the same time, it should serve as an acceptable mediator between the 19th-century environment and today.
The character of the architecture is simpler on the courtyard side, which is also characteristic of the surrounding buildings. Emphasis is placed on good proportions of the elevated window openings and solid walls.
The above-ground volume of the proposed infill in the gap is determined by the lighting conditions, but also by the fundamental volumetric conditions of the adjacent and opposite buildings. This is particularly evident at the mass interruption from the Konventná side.
The predominant materiality of solid surfaces is smooth plaster with selective glazing. The intention is to present the integrity of the new volume that subordinates itself to both the street and the lighting profile.