The Galerie of the city of Pardubice is moving to new premises in the Automatic Mills

Pardubice - The artistic project Mill Island is being prepared by the Gallery of the City of Pardubice for the ceremonial opening of the Automatic Mills complex, which is moving from the historic granary at Příhrádek. The renovated former mill complex will be ceremonially opened on September 29. Mill Island will be an exhibition of contemporary art tailored to the new space, combining spatial sculptural objects, art-architectural works, video projections, sound installations, textile works, or large-format drawings. The new building is not yet fully ready for their placement, said the gallery's program director Šárka Zahálková to ČTK.

"We have already moved from the old space, we are working on the installation in the gallery space. At the same time, various practical and technical issues are being finalized, such as doors or locks not working as they should, and technology is being installed. It's a blend of finishing construction work with preparing the exhibition," Zahálková stated.

Mill Island is meant to be a layered project with international participation. "These are not works that existed beforehand and were borrowed from a studio or another gallery or museum, but are being created largely for this space and in its context, reacting to the memory of that place," added Zahálková.

The gallery, which has existed since 2012, previously operated in a reconstructed baroque granary in the historical center of the city. It presents contemporary artistic creation and creates a space for discussion on current artistic and social topics. It does not create art collections of a museum type, does not own or sell artworks.

The new gallery spaces in the mills were built by the city in the location of the former flour storage. They also include the Urban Center, which will be a space for architecture and planning in Pardubice, used, among other things, for presenting projects related to urban development, architecture, urbanism, public space, and spatial planning. In another part, there will be two residential studios, a workshop studio, and storage spaces. The Automatic Mills will also house the city's polytechnic workshops Sféra, the regional Gočár Gallery, and the private cultural center Silo, which will be operated by the Smětana Foundation.

The former Automatic Mills were designed by architect Josef Gočár. The building was commissioned by the Winternitz brothers and was constructed gradually between 1909 and 1911. It was one of Gočár's first works bearing the characteristics of rondocubism. The main building, a towering structure, is the dominant feature of the location. In 1919, it was struck by a fire, and in the following five years, it was raised by one floor and an automatic fire suppression system was installed. In the 1920s, a silo was added to the mill, connected to the older part by a bridge. The mills ceased operations in 2013; the company GoodMills offered the complex to the city, which did not purchase it at that time, and the new owners became the Smětanas in 2016. Since 2014, the mills have been a national cultural monument.