The plan for the Brno concert hall will change, reducing the number of seats and parking spaces

Brno - The project for the construction of a concert hall for the Brno Philharmonic, which musicians have been pursuing for nearly 100 years, is set to change. The underground garages will be reduced by one level, the number of seats in the hall will decrease by a quarter, and there will be fewer commercial areas in the building. The need for changes was pointed out by a professional committee that has studied the two-year-old project of the Janáček Cultural Center in detail, Brno councilor Barbora Javorová told ČTK today.
The Janáček Cultural Center is to be built in the city center on the site of the current parking lot by the Besední dům, where the Philharmonic currently performs. The project has been discussed in Brno for years. "Various studies have been created on it, many materials are already outdated, and the city therefore had to update them. In June, it established a special committee of architects, geologists, and structural engineers, who came up with several amendments," Javorová said.
The parking lot by the Besední dům has been questioned as a suitable site primarily due to the subsoil. Some experts claimed that a multi-story building with underground garages could not be constructed on the alleged liquid sands. However, according to the expert committee, the problem can be resolved by reducing the number of underground levels from three to two. The number of seats in the main hall is also considered unnecessarily large by the committee. The original plan included 1600 seats, but it now should have only 1200 seats.
The summarizing and supplementary study cost over one million crowns, and the city will pay an additional half a million crowns for project revision. This week, the contract for the update of the project documentation was awarded to the firm Atelier M1, which must submit the revised project within six weeks. "The construction of the concert arena will cost about 1.2 billion crowns. By reducing the number of seats and decreasing the commercial areas, it could be possible to adhere to this amount even with current prices," Javorová added.
Brno has pledged nearly 190 million crowns, the same amount would be provided by the region, and funds from the state and the EU are also expected. The underground garages are estimated to cost around 350 million crowns, the construction of which could be funded by a private investor. According to the director of the Philharmonic, David Mareček, the primary issue is not the amount of investment, but the future operating costs. The city is not willing to increase the annual contribution to the Philharmonic, which currently amounts to about 53 million crowns, due to the concert hall.