Ostrava continues to work on transforming the exhibition grounds, with a reduction in cultural buildings

Ostrava - During the planned transformation of the exhibition grounds in Ostrava, Černá louka will see fewer cultural buildings than originally planned. The Office of the Chief Architect is currently completing a land-use study for this area. The city anticipates the creation of a new concert hall and another building intended for currently unspecified cultural purposes, said the city's chief architect, Cyril Vltavský, to ČTK.
The city was competing for the title of European Capital of Culture 2015 with a comprehensive transformation of Černá louka into a new urban district with cultural and educational institutions, but it lost in the competition to Plzeň. The year before last, it announced an international urban planning competition for the development of the Ostrava exhibition grounds at Černá louka, which was won by the Dutch architectural studio Maxwan. The city is now collaborating with this firm to complete the land-use study, which aims to establish spatial conditions for the placement of individual buildings.
According to Vltavský, the land-use study should help ensure that the area will not be used for other purposes in the coming years, for example, following a change in the political leadership at the town hall. Due to the defeat in the competition and the financial crisis, however, the city had to partially reassess its plans, and thus some buildings from the original intention were omitted.
"The land-use study will be somewhat different from the resulting (competition) proposal. Even the Maxwan firm acknowledged that in a time of crisis, the area as drawn in their proposal could not function," Vltavský noted.
In addition to completing the land-use study, which could be finished in about two months, the city is currently primarily focusing on preparing the construction of the concert hall. In the planning period from 2014 to 2020, it would like to obtain funding from the European Union for it. According to estimates, the construction should cost around one billion crowns, and the city itself would not be able to handle such a demanding investment.
The city has already had technical documentation prepared by a New York company that participated in building the Sydney Opera House for the announcement of the architectural competition. The technical documentation addresses parameters for sound and the background facilities of the concert hall.
According to Václav Palička, head of the economic development department at the city hall, the announcement of the architectural competition will be financially demanding for the city. If it wants to approach renowned architectural firms, it must anticipate expenses of around 30 to 40 million crowns. "We will announce the architectural competition at the moment when it becomes a little clearer how we will finance the construction," Palička stated, adding that until then, the city wants to prepare everything necessary.