The referendum on the Vřídlo colonnade in Karlovy Vary is invalid

Karlovy Vary - The referendum in Karlovy Vary for the construction of a replica of the 19th-century Vřídelní Colonnade instead of the current one is invalid. On Friday and today, only 33.66 percent of voters submitted their votes. For the referendum to be valid, at least 35 percent of eligible voters needed to participate. The majority of those who came to the referendum would like the replica. However, their votes were too few.

If about 300 more voters had participated, the referendum would not only be valid but also binding. More than 25 percent of eligible voters expressed support for the replica of the colonnade, which is a sufficient number for the binding nature of the plebiscite.

"This is a signal for us, but it does not contradict what we are striving for. We do not disqualify the cast-iron colonnade option in any way. We will simply proceed as we have previously announced, we will determine the necessary scope of emergency repairs for the Vřídelní Colonnade and begin preparing an international architectural competition, in which the replica of the cast-iron colonnade can regularly participate," said city mayor Petr Kulhánek (KOA) to ČTK after the announcement of the referendum results.

According to the representative of the referendum preparatory committee, Ota Řezanka, the organizers of the referendum will continue to promote the idea of returning the cast-iron colonnade, and the referendum results are another argument for them. "The campaign was hysterical. We need to free ourselves from those catastrophic scenarios and come down from those billion-dollar heights to realistic prices and put real facts against each other and start discussing that. We will try to find some constructive dialogue with the city hall," Řezanka stated.

According to him, the campaign for the referendum demonstrated that it is possible to produce cast-iron elements today at realistic prices. According to estimates from the referendum organizers, the entire replacement of the colonnade could cost between 250 to 350 million crowns. The city hall estimates it to be over a billion.

The preparatory committee has not yet ruled out that they could turn to the courts regarding possible influences on the course of the referendum, whether it be the negative campaign of the city leadership or organizations of the referendum, where some polling stations were in different buildings than the voters were accustomed to.

For the city, the result of the referendum will mean that it will continue to fulfill the resolution of the council, meaning the gradual preparation of an architectural competition for solving the area of the Vřídelní Colonnade and its surroundings. However, this will take many years. Until then, the city will likely continue with emergency repairs to the colonnade and especially its underground, where the thermal spring water, which is one of the main natural healing sources of the local spa, is collected and drawn into the spa houses. This year, it will cost the city about 25 million crowns.

Today's Vřídelní Colonnade was built in 1975 based on a design by architect Jaroslav Otruba. The massive structure, in the spirit of the then-popular brutalism, was originally intended to be part of a larger intervention in the center of the spa town, which was supposed to connect the individual colonnades. However, that did not happen.

The cast-iron colonnade, built between 1878 and 1879 by Viennese architects Ferdinand Fellner and Hermann Helmer in the pseudo-Renaissance style, consisted of a complex of four buildings with a total length of 107 meters. It was dismantled in 1939, and the metal material was used for wartime purposes.