Public sauna

© Tomáš Tesař, www.tomastesar.cz

Czech architectural office Mjölk Architekti made a remarkable contribution to public space utilization in Liberec, their city of residence. Without a legal permit for construction and surprising everyone in the city, they built a public sauna on an abandoned city dam. The preparation took five days and building time was eight hours.
During the night right after our apperance at Pecha Kucha Night Prague ‐ which took place last Wednesday – the architects built a public sauna at the city dam. The sauna itself was built on an abandoned concrete platform, which is located only a few dozen meters away from a popular public beach and promenade.
No legal permit was issued and the entire happening was kept secret. The bank of the dam is in public ownership of the municipality; the abandoned concrete structure as well the dam itself is owned by Povodí Labe, state administrator of watercourses of the Labe river. Neither of the authorities had any idea of what was about to happen.
Mjölk architekti presented the sauna to city representatives at an opening ceremony, which took place last Thursday. The sauna opened to public completely free of charge. From now on, it is accessible by a little rowing boat and it is operated from a nearby café, where keys and firewood are available.
The meaning of this happening is to draw attention to limitless opportunities of cultivation of public space and life only through a simple idea and a little bit of enthusiasm and money.