Structure studio KWK Promes has transformed a slaughterhouse within the Czech Republic into Plato Up to date Artwork Gallery, with exhibition areas lined with rotating concrete partitions.
Situated in Ostrava, the unique heritage-protected slaughterhouse constructing dates again to the nineteenth century, however after many years of disuse, it had develop into dilapidated and partially collapsed.
Tasked with adapting the construction into an artwork gallery, KWK Promes added an extension and concrete infills that distinction the present sooty brickwork however mimic its ornamentation.
These additions embody six giant rotating partitions, three of which give entry to Plato Up to date Artwork Gallery and three that permit its exhibition areas to be opened to the environment.
“We launched an answer that makes artwork extra democratic,” defined the studio.
“The principle thought of the venture is predicated on preserving the performance of the openings as shortcuts connecting the constructing to town,” it added. “This has supplied artists and curators with fully new exhibition prospects and permits artwork to actually ‘exit’ into the house across the constructing.”
Plato Up to date Artwork Gallery’s rotating partitions create two entrances on both facet of the constructing, main right into a central reception, ticket workplace and cafe space.
The 4 exhibition halls every sit on the bottom ground across the edges of the constructing, permitting them to profit from pure mild and a connection to the encompassing park.
A newly constructed wing on the constructing’s southern finish incorporates a further exhibition corridor with workplaces above, completed externally with a blind concrete facade adorned with the impressions of home windows, sills and lintels.
On the primary ground, this wing connects to a small group of rooms for visiting visitors and an area for the gallery’s academic programme.
Whereas the unique brickwork has been left seen internally within the circulation areas, the galleries have been reinsulated and lined with lime plaster, with deep reveals created for the constructing’s quite a few small arched home windows.
“The deteriorated bricks have been largely replenished with these recovered from a collapsed part of the constructing, [and] the brand new glazing has a ceramic display print, making it seem darkish and boring, attenuating the sunshine within the galleries.”
Surrounding Plato Up to date Artwork Gallery, KWK Promes landscaped a park with bushes, flower meadows and a small pool of water, with a gravel terrace across the gallery connecting to a collection of paths.
“Initially, we imagined a paved floor for inventive actions, however as we bought to know Ostrava higher, we realised that the place was extra in want of enticing inexperienced house for residents,” defined the studio.
“The contaminated soil there was rehabilitated and changed by a biodiverse park with water-permeable flooring, flower meadows and with retention basins.”
KWK Promes is a Polish structure studio based in Katowice in 1999 by Robert Konieczny and Marlena Wolnik. Its different current initiatives embody the white-concrete Home on the Street and Quadrant Home, which encompasses a rotating dwelling house.
Plato Up to date Artwork Gallery was not too long ago named considered one of seven finalists on this yr’s Mies van der Rohe Award for Europe’s finest new constructing.