Reconstruction of the Spirála Theater at the Exhibition Grounds will be completed in the first half of 2023

Prague - The reconstruction of the Spirála theater at the Prague Exhibition Center will be completed in the first half of next year. During the opening performance, the audience will see a concert version of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar, which made the venue famous in the 1990s. Representatives of the city hall and the city company Výstaviště Praha, responsible for the renovation, announced this to journalists today. The building had been deteriorating since the floods in 2002, and the reconstruction, costing approximately 200 million crowns, began last year.

Deputy Mayor Pavel Vyhnánek (Prague Sobě) stated that the reconstruction has encountered a slight delay due to supply issues and the complexity of the construction. "To date, we have removed 1,600 tons of various debris, degraded concrete, and similar materials from the construction site, and we have reinforced the structure by 100 tons," he said. He added that the work is currently being kept within the originally planned budget.

The reconstructed venue will retain unique structures, including the spiral ramp and a dome made of metal pipes. Additionally, the theater will feature stage, sound, and lighting technology, as well as a smaller hall for 250 to 300 people for hosting more intimate concerts. The main hall will have a capacity of 750 spectators. "Which is 100 more than the original capacity," Vyhnánek said.

The operation and programming of Spirála will be overseen by the company Výstaviště Praha, which aims to offer as diverse a program as possible. According to Jan Makalouš, who is responsible for the theater within the company, audiences can expect the return of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Jesus Christ Superstar at the opening of the venue, which had 1,288 performances in the theater during the 1990s.

Such a number is not planned by the Exhibition Center; according to Makalouš, there are currently only a few evenings scheduled, and it will not be a complete musical but rather a concert costume version supplemented with songs from other Webber musicals, such as Evita or Cats. Among other planned programs, Makalouš mentioned a family ballet performance of Snow White or a concert by tenor Pavel Černoch and the Ostrava Philharmonic. "The ambition is for the building to rank among the top multifunctional spaces in all of Europe," Vyhnánek said.

The exact date for the start of the program in the reconstructed venue cannot be determined yet, according to the head of the Exhibition Center, Tomáš Hübla; it will depend on how quickly the work can be completed.

The Spirála theater was created in 1991 by converting the former Panoramic Theatre. The cylindrical Panoramic Theatre was topped in 1960 with a tubular steel dome designed by Ferdinand Lederer, which is a reduced version of the roof of Pavilion Z at the exhibition ground in Brno. The dome's structure was preserved during the conversion in 1991 as a technical and cultural monument. The authors of the 1991 conversion are architects Jindřich Smetana, Jan Louda, Tomáš Kulík, and Zbyšek Stýblo. Kulík, in particular, had long advocated for the renovation and reopening of the venue, but he passed away last year and did not live to see the reopening of the theater. Nevertheless, he and the other original authors contributed to the reconstruction project.