Breakfast in the Barracks with an Architect

On Saturday, 19 January, within the Breakfast in the City event, approximately 30 visitors had an exclusive opportunity to obtain information about the reconstruction of the Kasárne complex into a progressive cultural centre, whilst enjoying their morning coffee and croissant.

In the pleasant atmosphere of the Schalkház café, the general designer of the project, Irakli Eristavi, presented the design of the reconstruction with which his Zero Zero design office won a competition to design an architectural/urban solution for reconstruction of the building. The Prešov designers have a lot of experience in transforming public space. They also presented their Sideways installation in 2008 in the eleventh year of the Venice Biennale of architecture where they represented the Slovak Republic.

When creating the concept for the Kasárne/Kulturpark, thirty cooperating specialists were attracted to the opportunity to open the fenced military area to the public: “Extra added value of the area is the park, mainly due to its quality with its hundreds of years old, healthy chestnut trees which add to the overall atmosphere of the space. We’d like to show it to the public and emphasise its potential. We didn’t really want to interfere with the architectural format of the buildings but we partially succeeded in doing this anyway,” said Eristavi.

The Kasárne/Kulturpark is a unique place in Košice in the immediate vicinity of the city centre. The central building of the cultural centre will consist of two multi-functional halls, audio-visual studios, offices and exhibition areas. Public space will be dominated by several elevated architectural points (small buildings serving as workshop pavilions), and the furniture in public areas will consist of approximately one hundred benches with an unusual geometric shape which the creators called Twins. The area of Steelpark will also include a creative factory, a café and a Centre for Supporting Culture and Creativity.

After the presentation of the architectural foundations, an open discussion took place where questions from participants were positively surprising in their depth of knowledge about the Kasárne/Kulturpark project.

The planned completion of building activities is planned for the end of May 2013. The established Summer in the Park festival is already planned to take place in the Kasárne/Kulturpark in summer, which will conceptually support the architectural ideas for the park open to the wide public.