Krnov will start repairs on the Shooting House this year

Krnov (Bruntálsko) - This year, the Krnov Town Hall will begin renovations of the Shooting House, designed in 1906 by the internationally renowned architect Leopold Bauer. The reconstruction of the building, which houses the city’s center for leisure activities, will cost tens of millions of crowns. The city will start the gradual replacement of windows during the summer, for which it received a state subsidy of half a million crowns. It also plans to repair the engineering networks, two terraces, and a café by the end of the year for nearly two million crowns. This was reported to ČTK by the town hall spokesperson Dita Círová.
    According to Círová, the overall reconstruction of this architectural gem is financially demanding enough that the city will carry it out in stages. The first replacement of the main windows in the large hall and adjacent offices will require at least one million crowns. “However, this is only a third of the necessary costs, so the windows on the terraces will be replaced later,” said Vlastimil Štverák from the municipal office.
    During the replacement, companies will proceed according to archival photographs of the Shooting House. “We would like to maintain partially tilting windows with opaque glass set in a checkerboard pattern. We based the colors on elements that Bauer used in 1929 during the renovations of the Krnov Larisch Villa,” Štverák specified.
    The Shooting House, which is at least a hundred years old and features rich stucco and sculptural decoration, belongs to Bauer's architectural heritage in the Moravian-Silesian Region. In Krnov, it is one of the unique works of individualistic modernism, just like the Flemmich Villa from 1914 by architect Otto Prutscher - also a student of the famous Viennese architect Otto Wagner.
    Bauer, a native of Krnov, transformed the Shooting House from an older Empire-style building. Initially, it was used not only by shooting societies - in addition to competitions in the adjacent garden, parties of German nobility were held in the building. During World War II, it housed a hospice. After 1945, the building was confiscated and five years later it became the House of Pioneers and Youth. After the Velvet Revolution, the name was changed from pioneers to children, and since 1997 the house has been home to the Méďa Leisure Center.