The automatic mills in Pardubice are awaiting further construction development. New buildings with flats, shops and services will be built there in the next few years, announced the investor Lukáš Smetana. The area is now a cultural quarter, after ten years since the mill closed down, two galleries or an educational centre have opened to the public there Friday.
“The complex is not complete at the moment. The side street is open, the second phase is to close it, to create a nice environment. Also to protect the surrounding development from cultural traffic. The campus will be multifunctional,” Smetana said. Construction, which will take about three years, is expected to begin next year, with the authority likely to issue a building permit at the turn of this year and next, said Smetana, who is an architect by profession.
Lukáš Smetana was living with his family in Prague when he was approached by architect Zdeněk Balík and informed about the automatic mills that were for sale. Smetana and his wife Mariana bought them in 2016 at an auction and paid CZK 22 million for them. “Which was purely an economic matter on my part. I love reconstruction, I studied reconstruction. It wasn’t that I wanted to save it and be a patron. I had to come to that first after a few years of ownership,” said Smetana.
The architect and his wife first negotiated with the city and the region to lease part of the site, later agreeing to sell it to the local authorities. Pardubice bought the former flour warehouse for CZK 15.5 million, which included the project. Now there is an educational centre Sféra and a city gallery.
The region bought the main building of the mill for CZK 21 million, renovated it and placed the East Bohemian Gallery in it, which has been called the Gočár Gallery since January. The name refers to the architect Josef Gočár, who designed the mills in the first decade of the 20th century. The mills have been a national cultural monument since 2014. The monument protection does not apply to parts that were built later and are not Gočár’s work.
“The mills are lucky to have been designed by Gočár from the beginning. Even during the totalitarian era, nothing destroyed the building. In October 1989, neighbouring properties were being bought up, a 50-metre-high giant silo was to be built here, but thanks to the revolution this did not happen, it would have destroyed the mills. The millers then took almost all the technology out of here. If it were listed as a National Cultural Monument with all the technology, it would be nothing but a museum of grain milling,” Smetana said.
The reconstruction of the entire site is the work of the public, private and non-profit sectors. The Automatic Mills Foundation, founded by the Smetanas, renovated the former silo as well as the public areas. The silo houses an office and information centre, and the ground floor has an elevator that takes visitors upstairs, where there are exhibition rooms, a multifunctional hall and an observation deck.
The cost of rebuilding the silo amounted to 104 million crowns, with European subsidies amounting to 70 million crowns. The state budget contributed CZK 8.2 million. The Automatic Mills Foundation paid CZK 25.8 million. The entire complex with all the buildings retains its original industrial character, dominated by the brick colour.
“We put all the public money into the square and the park, I didn’t buy a Ferrari or a yacht with it. We treat it with respect. Only history will tell if our architectural approach was correct,” Smetana said.
Source: CTK
