Repairs to Janáček Theatre will be longer and more expensive due to asbestos

Brno - The repairs of the Janáček Theatre in Brno will take longer and be more expensive than expected. The builders, who started work there at the beginning of the holidays, discovered dangerous asbestos materials, which will affect the scope of additional work and the approved schedule. "A proposal is currently being created on how to deal with such a large amount of asbestos; it will have to be disposed of by a specialized company," said the director of the National Theatre Brno, Martin Glaser, to reporters today.

He expects that the repairs will exceed costs by millions and extend by one or two months. Theatre artists hope that by the beginning of the Janáček Brno festival in November 2018, the stage with the largest theatre space in the Czech Republic will be repaired and ready for daily operation.

Asbestos was once widely used in construction, especially due to its heat resistance. However, its health-damaging properties have been proven, and it is now banned as a building material in the Czech Republic. Builders found it in the ductwork and machine rooms of the air conditioning system and in fire protection flaps. Asbestos-cement insulation panels are located in other areas.

The builders took over the theatre on June 30. Their task was to carry out repairs in the following 14 months. The companies Metrostav, IMOS, and OHL succeeded in the tender with an offer of 524 million crowns excluding value-added tax. Originally, the theatre artists hoped to return to the building after the holidays in 2018.

The goal of the repairs is to expand the social facilities, modernize areas for both the audience and employees, stage technology, and all installations. Unlike the original plans, the builders also focused on the roof, which is in poor condition.

The Janáček Theatre primarily features opera and ballet from the National Theatre Brno. Both ensembles will therefore have a provisional arrangement at the Mahen Theatre in the upcoming season, which will be connected to exploring new locations suitable for theatrical production, such as the Brno Exhibition Centre.

The monumental Janáček Theatre, with a hall for 1,383 spectators, was built in the first half of the 1960s according to a design by a collective of Brno architects. Among them were Ivan Ruller and Boleslav Písařík, for example.