Site
Senovážné Square is part of the city walls ring road. The city walls circular boulevard is a phenomenon specific to the historical cities of Austria-Hungary. The model is the Vienna Ring, which consists of two concentric circular roads, Ringstraße and Gürtel, encompassing areas of greenery and prominent standalone buildings. Our design is guided by this principle.
In České Budějovice, the city walls ring boulevard is defined by the facades of houses on Jirsíkova Street and Na Mlýnské Stoce, the Metropol Cultural Centre, and buildings on Na Sadech Street.
We propose a compact building with a square floor plan. The mass follows and complements the rectangular grid of the square. Its scale matches the Slavia Cultural Centre and the Post Office building. In terms of height, the design adheres to regulations of 19 and 22 metres.
Building
The gallery is designed as a house within a house.
The exhibition halls are situated in an internal concrete core. All other premises are located in the galleries around this inner mass. The logic of internal operations is organized in the same manner.
The entrance foyer on the ground floor and some of the galleries facing the square continue into the square’s public space.
The exhibition area is divided into four equally sized halls of 524 m2 and is accessible from the surrounding galleries. This layout provides flexibility with setting up collections and exhibitions and enables a seamless combination of permanent and temporary exhibits.
Operations
Public Spaces
The main entrance leads into the foyer on the ground floor, which includes a ticket office, restaurant, library with gift shop, cloakrooms and sanitary facilities.
The foyer leads to a multi-purpose hall, which has its own independent street entrance.
Galleries with stairs and a lift lead from the entrance foyer to the upper floors. Because these areas are also public, they allow access to upper floors and panoramic views of the city without the need to purchase a ticket.
Exhibition Spaces
Exhibition halls form the core layout on all floors except the ground floor.
Each hall has its own depository on the same floor. The hall in the basement also leads to exhibition preparation workshops and furniture storage areas.
The hall on the fourth floor at the top brings in natural light through skylights. In conjunction with a catering bar and educational space, it can be used for social occasions and thematic workshops.
The foyer on the ground floor is designed to be a flexible, open area. Parts of this space can be easily adapted for small, temporary displays.
Administrative, Technical and Other Spaces
The western gallery has a separate staircase and cargo lift and is dedicated to office and operational facilities. The cargo lift provides access to the depositories and operational spaces.
The ground floor also has a separate service entrance for the kitchen and restaurant facilities. The second and third floors contain office spaces.
A utility room with environmental and other controls is situated on the roof.
Facade
The facade features structural glazing. Perforated brass panels project outwards from the glass facade. The perforations increase in size upwards until they disappear at the top floor, opening up an uninterrupted view of the city.
The perforation density corresponds to the internal layout. Service operations such as the restaurant, multi-purpose hall and its facilities are located on the ground floor.
These premises should be closed. The office spaces on the first and second floors require natural light but also a degree of shading. The top floor features a bar with an uninterrupted view of the historical centre and square.
The evening lighting for the galleries, especially on the top floor, underscores the significance of this public building.
The gold-like brass symbolises the valuable gilding used in the AJG’s collection of Gothic art and pays tribute to the techniques used in its application.
Structure
The load-bearing structure is based on a reinforced concrete wall with steel grid ceilings to maximize the span of the exhibition halls.
The exhibition halls have clear dimensions of 24.5 × 21.4 m, without internal supports. The steel grid contains elements at an axial distance of 3.1 m and height of 1.0 m. The structural height is 4.75 m, and the clear height is 3.5 m.
The grid is integrated with a reinforced concrete slab 180 mm thick. The ceilings on the ground floor are supported by the wall beams of the upper floors. The perimeter galleries are supported by cantilevers in the steel grid, forming continuous beams with the ceilings above the halls.
Indoor Environmental Control
The interior hall environment is lit artificially and ventilated mechanically. The exhibition hall walls do not contact the external environment. The surrounding corridors serve as a buffer zone. The hall entrances face north from the controlled gallery environment.
The exposed southwest facade is cooled by a surface water area leading to Mlýnská stoka. Achieving the required stable environment is possible without any increase in energy demand.
Heating is provided by floor heating with a low-temperature gradient. The floor ducts also provide cooling. Heating and cooling are expected to be facilitated by a heat pump with a reversible air-to-water cycle.
In summer, the galleries take advantage of the stack effect and are ventilated at night. Cold is accumulated into the concrete structures.
The utility room is a part of the roof superstructure. Vertical media lines are located in installation shafts outside the exhibition halls, and horizontally in the steel ceiling structure.