Zlín announced a competition for the completion of the town hall

The statutory city of Zlín has announced an architectural competition organized in the form of a competitive dialogue for the completion of the town hall complex in the historic center of Zlín. The city government anticipates an investment of approximately 100 million crowns excluding VAT in the first phase of the reconstruction. Results should be known in the autumn of this year.

 “The competition was primarily triggered by the poor technical condition of some buildings that are part of the town hall and the resulting spatial constraints. Moreover, it is time for building no. 10, the space where the Minutka café used to be located, to once again become a dignified part of the town hall and the entire Míru Square,” said the mayor of Zlín, Jiří Korec.

The current form of the town hall was established exactly one hundred years ago. The city's leaders at that time were looking for a replacement for the inadequate town hall building from the 16th century, through a public competition. The result of the competition was the construction by the legend of Zlín's urbanism, F. L. Gahura, which remains the main headquarters of the city today.

 “We believe that for Zlín, the initiation of the architectural competition for the completion of the town hall in the year marking the city's 700th anniversary is symbolic. We would like to build on the very high-quality interwar Zlín architecture. This completion will also significantly enhance the functionality of the current town hall building and will serve as another impetus for the revitalization of the square. The practical and functional aspects of the new completion are also important to us,” stated the deputy mayor for property and development areas, Pavel Brada.

The procurement procedure is announced in the form of a competitive dialogue. Applications can be submitted until April 4th. The evaluation committee will first select six participants from the applicant studios, with whom a workshop on the developed proposals will subsequently be held. Detailed competition conditions and documents are published on the procurer's portal.

Emphasis will be placed on the first implementation phase, during which building no. 10, which has been vacated for several years and provisionally secured, should be replaced. In the second phase, further buildings in the immediate vicinity of the historical building are to be replaced. The second implementation phase then represents the ideal final form of the town hall building complex, including the potential completion of the courtyard and the reconstruction of building no. 15.

 “The challenge for the competitors will be the operational solutions of the town hall buildings, but primarily finding a suitable key to the coexistence of historical and new layers of architecture,” added Pavel Stojar, the deputy mayor for culture and heritage preservation.

In the evaluation committee, architects Antonín Novák, Miroslav Pospíšil, Zdeňka Vydrová, Lukáš Blažek are represented, along with architect Ivan Bergmann and art historian Ladislava Horňáková representing Zlín.

The main town hall building, which is a immovable cultural monument, is one of the first architectural realizations by the Zlín native, sculptor and architect František Lýdie Gahura. The project was selected in a nationwide architectural competition as a replacement for the Renaissance town hall that burned down in the same year. The cornerstone of the building was laid on August 13, 1922, and the influence of Gahura's teachers - Josip Plečnik and Jan Kotěra, under whose supervision he worked on this project as part of his diploma work, is evident. The interior design refers to Czech Cubism, while the exterior fully meets its purpose - it appears monumental and representative, forming a natural dominant of the square.

Competition conditions can be found here.