Kolín has a proposal for an artwork for the Vinice hill

Kolín – Kolín has won a design for an artwork in an architectural competition which will be placed on top of the Vinice hill. The hill is a reclaimed landfill. If the city hall secures funding, the artwork will begin construction as early as next year. The costs are not expected to exceed 1.5 million crowns, Mayor Michael Kašpar (Change for Kolín) told reporters today.

The expert jury in the competition selected from 37 proposals. "We expected five to ten proposals," said the mayor. The total number thus surprised the city hall. Two proposals came from designers from the Kolín region; in addition to Czech designs, submissions also came from Slovakia, Great Britain, and the Netherlands.

According to the winning proposal, a smaller hill with a diameter of 40 meters is to be created by transporting earth to the top of the hill. It will be planted with greenery and trees, and a path will lead through the center of the new mound. A so-called tree chapel will be established here, which could in the future be perceived as the peak of the planned Stations of the Cross. The tree chapel will also be intended for meditation.

All the proposals submitted to the competition can be viewed by the public starting from March 30 at an exhibition in the local business incubator. The city has prepared financial rewards for the top three designs, with the author of the winning proposal receiving 90,000 crowns, the second place getting 50,000 crowns, and the third receiving 30,000 crowns. According to the brief, the artwork should work not only with the context of the location and its history but also with a new spiritual dimension of the place.

The Vinice hill is located on the outskirts of the city towards Ovčáry, near the sugar beet railway. It is a former landfill that was sealed and remediated in the 1990s. The landfill occupied an area of 48,000 square meters on Vinice until 1993. It served for municipal waste from Kolín.