Concrete cladding from the former Prior in Brno is in high demand, there is no interest in the equipment

Brno - Throughout the weekend, a construction company is selling off components of the equipment from the former Prior at the main train station in Brno. At the back of the cleared building, people can buy parts of sanitary ware, panels with fluorescent lights, or speakers at a symbolic price from this morning until Sunday afternoon. Conversely, there is much greater interest in the relief concrete panels by sculptor Milan Buříval, which decorated the railings of the terrace at the former Prior.

"We expected more interest. The most people came for fire extinguishers, took away some lights and one table," said Vladimír Grendel to ČTK, who is in charge of the clearance sale for the construction company Gemo. There is also little interest in built-in equipment, such as shop shutters, cooling units, or bakery ovens.

In contrast, there is a great interest in Buříval's relief concrete panels, the sale of which is organized by art historian Šárka Svobodová from the non-profit organization Brno Architectural Manual. The panels, measuring 154 by 45 centimeters and weighing up to 60 kilograms, are selling like hotcakes. "So far, we have offered about 60 for sale in three days, but there were hundreds of interested buyers. We have to remove another 50 panels, but the interest far exceeds the supply," Grendel noted. He added that further sales will take place only after workers have dismantled all the remaining panels.

The developer company Crestyl, which owns the building, has never offered a similar clearance sale before. "We didn't know what to expect. There is interest in smaller furnishings, but we were also prepared for a larger influx. As for the concrete cladding, the interest is indeed unexpectedly huge, and we haven't been able to meet it so far," said the developer's spokesperson, Ondřej Micka.

The demolition of the Prior building itself will begin in January and will last for four months. Immediately afterward, the construction of the New Dornych project is set to start. In the area next to the main station, a partially covered public space and six buildings are planned to be created by 2027, the tallest of which will have eight floors. There will be a connection to the underpass beneath the main train station and also a bridge over Úzká street. The new buildings will contain 186 rental apartments, complemented by 26,000 square meters of office space and 27,000 square meters designated for shops.

The former Prior building is one of the last representatives of the architectural style of brutalism in Brno. It was completed in 1984 and is a fragment of the original, much larger project that dealt with the entire area south of the Grand bus station and anticipated the relocation of the main station. According to it, a large regional center was to be created with two department stores and a commerce and services building with 22 floors. The project began to emerge in the 1960s but was postponed after the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops in 1968, resulting in only a more modest variant being built, which was the OD Prior.