Pardubice Region is completing the renovation of a listed school for 66 million crowns

Pardubice - Pardubice Region is completing an extensive reconstruction of the Secondary School of Electrical Engineering and Higher Vocational School in Pardubice. Repairs to the heritage-protected building designed by architect Ladislav Machon will cost 66 million crowns, stated Dominik Barták, spokesperson for the regional government, in a press release. Construction work took place during the summer holidays and continues during the school year.

"Given that this is a heritage-protected building that was built nearly 100 years ago, we could not address a complete renovation of the facade, but only certain parts," said Deputy Governor Roman Línek (Coalition for the Pardubice Region). The construction company also insulated the gym ceiling, perimeter walls, the attic floor, and roofs; this included dehumidifying the building and replacing windows with blinds, as well as modernizing the roof, gutters, and lightning rods. The region received nearly 20 million crowns from the European Operational Program Environment for the repairs.

The school complex of the former state vocational school designed by Ladislav Machon, built between 1925 and 1929 in the style of decorative modernism, is considered by preservationists to be a quality interwar public building. It is a defining element of the urban layout of Smetanovo náměstí, where it forms a corner with a busy street. It is an example of important modern architecture, where decorative tendencies transition into constructivist ones. The complex comprises a pair of broadly developed two-story wings with a dominant three-story mass at the corner intersection. The gym is connected perpendicularly to the northern wing, and the residential building for the principal and janitor is attached to the street front on Jahnovy street on the western side of the complex.

In addition to Machon’s original design, the school underwent some modifications in later years. In 1974, the workshop, laboratory, and computer pavilion was completed, and another extension dates from 1985.