Ostrava will announce an architectural competition for the construction of a concert hall

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Ostrava - The city of Ostrava will announce an architectural competition for the construction of a new concert hall, the building of which could cost around 1.5 billion crowns excluding VAT. The city wants to build the best concert hall in the country, exceptional not only from an architectural but also from an acoustic point of view, said Mayor Tomáš Macura to reporters today. In the last two years, this is the fifth architectural competition announced by the city.

The concert hall should be located near the House of Culture of the city of Ostrava, which is also set to be renovated. "Ostrava has been striving for such a hall for a good 70 years, actually since the moment that cultural center was built, which does have a concert hall, but it does not meet the necessary acoustic parameters," Macura stated.

According to him, the competition will specifically require the harmonization of the architect and the acoustician. "We do not want to prioritize one of these two aspects over the other," Macura said. He mentioned that architects from abroad and other experts will be on the jury. The prize for first place in the competition is one million crowns.

"Procedurally, the competition will be very similar to the competition for the reconstruction of the city slaughterhouse. It will be two rounds, where we want to directly invite selected architectural studios, a total of three, which I have pre-negotiated, and then allow participation from others who meet the competition conditions. From them, we would select another three participants," Macura explained. Among the invited and pre-negotiated studios are architects who have already participated in the construction of concert halls, for example in Katowice or Reykjavik. Participants in the competition will have to guarantee that they have contracted an acoustician with experience in designing similar halls. The new hall is expected to have a capacity of approximately 1300 seats.

The city aims to announce the competition in June. The winner could be known at the beginning of next year. Construction could begin in 2021 or 2022. In 2017, the city established a special fund, where money is allocated for the construction of the hall. So far, it contains 100 million crowns, but it also counts on assistance from the state and the region.