32 PROJECT REPORT: TRANSPORT FACILITIES & PUBLIC REALM
As the architects attest, trying to make the case for restoring this kind of contemporary architecture is always difficult, but it’s made harder when associated with a controversial political legacy. In addition, it “wasn’t old enough to be considered historical.”
A new era of challenges With the building having been built by the former regime, the majority of people in the region consider it “communist architecture,” says Chybik. He says the antipathy towards brutalist architecture in the country is now a “hot topic, because architects are trying to protect and preserve it.” He says the “complicated” identity of buildings of this era is resulting in their demolition, also citing the recent removal of brutalist buildings by renowned architect Kengo Kuma in Japan as a disappointing recent symptom.
DESIGN FOR LIGHT
The core design move was repainting and lighting the white roof structure, enhancing a feeling of weightlessness given by the beams overhead
cladding. Driven by functionalism principles which saw their heyday in Brno’s architecture in the interwar period, (including Mies van der Rohe’s famous Villa Tugendhat), the building instantly communicates how it works. It also ideally suits its core function, enabling buses to move easily to and from the park above and platforms below.
The effort to restore the building for the 21st century as a positive emblem of the city would require the practice to take a persistently proactive stance over many years in order to get it off the ground. For Ondrej, it was a “personal project,” which helped to motivate him in what he admits was a labour of love for the practice. The building was not long completed before the Velvet Revolution in 1989, which saw the formerly government-owned terminal sold to a private company, however it retained the stigma of the past.
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Despite the hope engendered by the 1989 revolution, the initial phase of the move to democracy and capitalism in the new Republic was problematic, says Chybik, with uncontrolled speculative development rife. The new private owners of the Zvonarka terminal didn’t run the service, and only made rental income from the bus companies, and “the business wasn’t lucrative enough to maintain the property properly, or reconstruct it.” This also meant the owners weren’t able to sell it for office, retail or residential purposes. The terminal faces onto a retail park across a public square, however prior to the refurbishment its perimeter was cluttered with retail “stands” – low-quality prefab cubicles added piecemeal over the years, selling cheap goods. These ruined the transparency and connectivity with the city which the original design offered, and obscured and darkened its ground level. Says Chybik, “It was a place where you felt sorry for young girls having to wait alone for the evening bus – it was even scary for me.” The practice’s overarching driver alongside this renewal agenda, was one of sustainability: “You can’t constantly remove and replace. Let’s try and reuse existing buildings more efficiently, make them more versatile; society has built enough.”
Making an intervention Founding their practice in 2010, the architects were relatively new and hungry, and determined to do something with the terminal. They were also able to devote the time to making the project happen. This was fortunate, as the client would prove to
ADF OCTOBER 2021
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