Liberec wants to transform the old spa into an exhibition center

Liberec - The Liberec City Council wants to transform the Emperor Franz Joseph I Municipal Baths into an exhibition center. This is already the third vision aimed at giving new life to the unused, monument-protected building. There was no money for the Health House that the city wanted to build, nor for the relaxation center that was to be built by an Israeli company. The exhibition center, which could also accommodate the Regional Gallery, would cost 370 million crowns, most of which would come from the European Union, said Mayor Jiří Kittner (ODS) to reporters yesterday.
    The city has included the project in the Integrated City Development Plan and will soon apply for European subsidies. "We could obtain up to 92.5 percent of the costs. Whether we have a chance of success will be known in November," he remarked. Next year, the city would find a contractor, and within two years it would carry out the renovation and completion of the building.
    Kittner wants the transformation of the baths into a gallery to become a regional project. However, neither the regional nor the city council has discussed it yet. The Regional Gallery belongs to the region, is in poor structural condition, and the region does not have the funds for its renovation. By combining both projects, two problems would be solved simultaneously. However, the city is ready to rebuild the baths even without the support of the region, and would then use them as exhibition spaces.
    Liberec found inspiration for the transformation in the French city of Roubaix, where they also transformed the baths into an art gallery, with a strip of water remaining in the middle of the main hall at the site of the former swimming pool. "It should be the same here," Kittner added. The city council wants to revitalize the area of Lidové sady, as the baths are located on the connecting line between them and the center.
    The city acquired the baths in 2005 at auction for nine million crowns and invested 27.5 million crowns in their preservation with the help of the state and the region. Currently, there is no threat of destruction to the monument.
    The Liberec municipal baths were built between 1900 and 1902 according to the design of Viennese architect Peter Paul Brang. The building emerged at the time of the greatest expansion of what was then a German city in honor of the 50th anniversary of Emperor Franz Joseph I's reign. A restored German inscription that commemorates this has returned to the building today. The baths form an architecturally unique whole with the neighboring North Bohemian Museum and children's polyclinic. Before the city acquired the building, it changed owners several times, and none of them invested in the baths.