Lookout Tower on Šibeník

Reconversion of the wind turbine tower with a transformer into a lookout tower with a tourist information center, Šibeník Hill, Nový Hrádek

Lookout towers today are sprouting in the mountains like mushrooms after rain. It is not so much a national sport as it is the mountains themselves. The lookout towers in these mountains were built in the second half of the 19th century by tourism associations from German, Polish, Austrian, and Czech backgrounds. Some of them offer views as far as the Alps under excellent conditions.
The lookout tower on Šibeník is part of the tourist trail of the Czech-Polish Ridge Trail. It was primarily funded by European grants from the transnational association of municipalities in this Euroregion:
"Cooperation that transcends borders helps mitigate the disadvantages that borders impose on the territory. It overcomes the national marginal positions of border areas and improves the living conditions of the population."
The untested prototype of the wind farm from 1995 was never put into operation due to noise concerns. ČEZ was still striving for its activation until 2013, when the last of the towers with the transformer was purchased by the municipality with the idea of creating a lookout tower.
The volume of the information center was materially and operationally supplemented by the lowest tract in the shape of a rocky outcrop. The transformer was spatially divided into three tracts: the main visitor tract, the support tract, and the service tract. A gallery in the main space and a terrace above the middle tract were added, which seamlessly connects to the walkway to the lookout tower. The visitor route leads through the information center to the gallery, where exhibition uses are considered, and further through the observation terrace and walkway to the lookout tower.
For compositional reasons, the lookout tower was extended with a technical extension with the expectation of typical telecommunication use.
The original tower and transformer remain legible in their new skin. The verticality of the lookout tower is to be balanced by the horizontality of the new avenue along the access road.
The construction is being realized partially in an island mode, with its own water source and the disposal of wastewater through a treatment plant and infiltration; heating is provided by a heat pump.