Architects: KWK Promes Photography: Jakub CertowiczJuliusz Sokołowski Construction Period: 2022 Location: Ostrava, Czech Republic
In Ostrava, capital of the Czech region of Moravia-Silesia, the Polish firm founded by Robert Konieczny, KWK Promes, was entrusted to transform a slaughterhouse that was in a state of ruin into an art gallery. In the superposition of layers showing the building’s history, the project has maintained the soot-darkened brickwork, witnesses of the city’s industrial past, while the demolished walls have been reconstructed with contemporary materials like microcement, recreating inexistent elements and original decoration. Six large openings in the old structure were filled with panels which function as rotating doors, two of them serving as entrances and the rest connecting the galleries to the exterior. The screenprints on the dark opaque glazing reduces the light entering the galleries, and the arrangement of vegetation in the outdoor areas refers to the location of the other buildings on the old slaughterhouse premises.
Text provided by the architect.
