Czech Lípa is looking for a designer for the reconstruction of Kounic's house

Česká Lípa - Česká Lípa is looking for a designer for the reconstruction of the burned Kounic House. The city wants to save the listed building and eventually move the Libertin House of Children and Youth there, as the current facilities are no longer sufficient. It is a very demanding contract that will also include a structural and technical survey. A requirement is that the designers collaborate mainly with conservationists throughout the entire period. Kristýna Kňákal Brožová, spokesperson for the Česká Lípa town hall, said this today to ČTK.

The former burgher house, also known as Kounic House, was completed in 1771 by the then owners of the estate, the Kounic nobles. They built it on the site of a manorial brewery, which was destroyed by fires in 1611 and 1698. The house served the estate officials, and in later years it housed a salt warehouse, military hospital, customs office, Czech gymnasium, and in the second half of the 20th century, Svazarm. In May 2015, the listed house burned down; the cause was welding work on the roof. After the fire, it lost its roof and has been deteriorating since then.

The city bought the house last August for 1.9 million crowns from the Association of Sports Federations of the Czech Republic, which had not done any work on the house since the fire. Last year, the town hall spent almost eight million more on the building's structural stabilization and its provisional roofing. According to the town hall’s estimate, the preparation for the reconstruction project will now take one and a half years. In addition to preparing the project for the building permit, the winner must also provide a project for contractor selection and ensure author supervision during the reconstruction.

"By awarding the complete project preparation all at once, we primarily want to save time, because otherwise we would have to tender each individual activity separately. However, we also want to ensure that the winner of the contract is of high professional quality. Therefore, the evaluation criterion will not be only price, but the quality of the implementation team will carry the same weight. An additional criterion will be the time within which the team can complete the project," said mayor Jitka Volfová (ANO).