New Use of Winternitz Mills - Exhibition of Projects

Workshop on the new use of the automatic mills of the Winternitz brothers in Pardubice - exhibition of student projects

On Thursday, June 13, 2013, the workshop Automatic Mills Pardubice culminates. The exhibition opening will take place at 4:00 PM directly in the mills in Pardubice.

The Research Center for Industrial Heritage (VCPD), an organization at the Faculty of Architecture that has long been mapping industrial sites, their current situation, and opportunities for further use, organized a student workshop in the first half of 2013 that seeks suitable concepts for the new use of the automatic mills of the Winternitz brothers in Pardubice. This activity was created in response to reports of the impending sale of the heritage-protected buildings and the entire adjacent milling complex. We began to monitor the situation in the fall of 2012 when the current owner of the mills, the joint-stock company Unimills (now Goodmills), first announced its intention to cease operations in the mills and offer the complex for sale. The fate of such an important technical monument naturally became a high-priority topic for VCPD this year. Heritage protection is certainly a significant regulation against inappropriate future development; however, it is essential to give equal exceptional attention to the new use, its risks, and potential for such an extraordinary site. Therefore, VCPD decided to organize a series of events on this topic, primarily the workshop itself, involving students from Czech faculties of architecture, experts on the Pardubice mills, industrial heritage, or architects dealing with conversions in their practice. Together, students, educators, and professionals developed several concepts for the new use of the complex. Part of the workshop included a tour of the site as well as visits to other newly repurposed industrial buildings, and a lecture featuring historians, heritage preservationists, architects, and Pardubice city councilors. A presentation and discussion of the developed projects took place with public participation. The resulting works are presented in the following exhibition, offering an interesting perspective on the possibilities for the future development of this unique site. The exhibition is organized in collaboration with the Pardubice initiative Mills for the City! and Divadlo 29. The exhibition will be traveling, and other locations where it will be displayed in the following months are currently under negotiation.