The concert hall in Ostrava will start construction next year, it is set to cost 2.6 billion

Ostrava – The construction of a concert hall in the shape of a musical instrument case and the related reconstruction of the House of Culture of the City of Ostrava is expected to begin next year. The costs for the construction have risen to 2.6 billion crowns, initially estimated at about two billion. Overall, the project, including documentation costs, is expected to amount to 2.9 billion crowns. Currently, around 70 experts are working on the project, developing the architectural design by Steven Holl. The American architect arrived in Ostrava for the first time today to participate in a working team meeting as well as discussions with professionals and the general public.

Holl told reporters that he understood how important the acoustics would be for the construction, something that was clear from the tender documentation. "We knew it was a challenge. When we looked at this site, we knew we would place the concert hall on the side of the park, but we also knew that the main street lives here, which we wanted to reflect in the entrance," said Holl. He added that the question was how to connect everything. "One morning I just woke up and the idea came, so I drew it and showed it to my wife, and she told me it was a winning idea," Holl noted.

The design of the concert hall has been known since July 2019, when the results of the largest architectural competition in the modern history of the city, prepared since 2017, were announced. The authors of the winning design are Steven Holl Architects from New York and Architecture Acts from Prague. The building design resembles a musical instrument case in its shape when viewed from above. The new concert hall will have nearly 1,300 seats and will provide facilities for a 100-member orchestra of the Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava. It will also offer a chamber hall with 515 seats, as well as an educational center with 200 seats. Its components will include a recording studio, a theater hall with a capacity of 470 seats, a lecture hall with 120 seats, and additional spaces for commercial use. The expected attendance is up to half a million people per year.

"After the study we presented some time ago, documentation at the level of the land decision has been processed and discussed. These days, the designers are finalizing the documentation for the joint construction permit, which already reflects the results of dozens of surveys and the requirements of affected parties. Ground works could start next year," said Deputy Mayor Zuzana Bajgarová (ANO). The building permit is expected to be issued in the spring. "The actual large construction should then start growing in 2023, with its completion planned for 2025," Bajgarová added.

The costs of the entire project have increased by about 600 million crowns. The price rise is attributed, for example, to the clarification of the conditions for establishing the building, increased costs for the relocation of engineering networks, and the increase also takes into account the rise in prices in the construction market. The city expects to finance the construction with the help of the state and the region, but it could also obtain resources from the Just Transition Fund.

The new concert hall, equipped with the latest technologies, will be connected to the culturally protected House of Culture. The city has tried to construct a concert hall six times, first in the 1860s and last in 1969. None of these attempts were successful. "While in other Central and Eastern European countries, 14 concert halls have been built in the last 12 years, mainly in Poland, here the last concert hall built is the Dvořák Hall in Prague's Rudolfinum, officially opened in 1885," reminded Mayor Tomáš Macura (ANO).

Seventy-three-year-old Holl is among the leading architects in the world. He emphasizes the ecological sustainability of buildings in his designs, and the Ostrava hall will also utilize a system of heat pumps and photovoltaic panels. Holl is a professor at Columbia University in New York, considered one of the most prestigious architecture schools in the world. He has received several significant awards.