Zsolnay Cultural Quarter

The largest project for ECOC Pécs is the complete transformation of the Zsolnay Porcelain Factory (built in 1851) into a new cultural quarter. The factory is well known throughout Hungary and Europe producing anything ceramic you can imagine from roof tiles to valuable works of art. The Zsolnay Cultural Quarter, designed by MCXVI Építészműterem Kft., displaces the active Zsolnay factory to an adjacent site, and adds an array of new public spaces in a campus-like layout with heritage buildings, new contemporary spaces and public gardens. 

The Zsolnay Cultural Quarter will be home to a new gallery space for the impressive Zsolnay ceramics collection, spaces for the University of Pécs Music and Art departments, a new contemporary and modern art museum, a children’s museum and a permanent home for the renowned local Bóbita Puppet Theatre. 

All of the capital projects as part of the ECOC Pécs total $178 million Euros, $45 million of which goes to the Zsolnay Project alone. Eighty-five percent of the funding is provided by the European Union, five percent by the federal government and ten percent by the City of Pécs. 

 

HUNGARY: Introducing Pécs, European Capital of Culture 2010

Pécs celebrates its title as 2010 European Capital of Culture. I was there "in 2010", get it?

Hungary (weeks two and three):

On August 15th, I traveled by train to southern Hungary. I arrived in the city of Pécs (pronounced “Paych”), located three hours south west of Budapest. The city of 160,000 was named the 2010 European Capital of Culture (ECOC). 

This prestigious title affords the city a major injection of capital and programming dollars from the European Union to realize its potential as a cultural centre. They have renewed major and minor public squares, restored public museums, and created new ones. 

The impact these changes have had on the mentality of the people in this post-industrial, post-communist city is palpable. The city is beautiful and the community is proud and optimistic about the future.

Concluding Austria With a Trip to Graz

View from the "needle" inside the Kunstmuseum, Graz

I also made it to Graz (European Capital of Culture 2003) two hours South of Vienna. An architect there, Friedl Prasenc, showed me around Graz and many contemporary architecture sites that rounded off an exciting week in Austria. 

Mur Island (2003) designed by Acconci Studio

  Detail, Mur Island (2003) designed by Acconci Studio

Part of University of Graz

My visit to Austria also included meeting (yet) another female architect, Sabine Pollack who works as an architect in Vienna (Koeb & Pollak Architektur) and teaches architecture at the University of Linz. Of note, she in involved with some very interesting social housing projects for women in Vienna. My eyes were opened up to the social housing tradition in Vienna that seems part and parcel with the city’s progressive approach to public investment and community development.

I was so taken with Austria, I've started German lessons! Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch. Sehr gut! :)

Tabakfabrik and OK Kulturhaus, Linz

I visited Linz for a day. Linz was the European Capital of Culture in 2009 and is located two hundred kilometers west of Vienna. In a full day, I visited two interesting heritage/adaptive reuse sites: Tabakfabrik, a former tobacco factory designed by architect, Peter Behrens (circa 1930) and the OK Kulturhaus (ARCHITECT?), a contemporary art centre in an old school.

Tabakfabrik by architect, Peter Behrens, built 1930-35

I really enjoyed the OK Kulturhaus. It was terrific exhibition space with a contemporary rooftop boardwalk and green roof.  

 

Hammocks on the rooftop! It doesn't get better than this. This is my kind of urban intervention.

I also visited the contemporary Ars Electronica Centre (Treusch Architecture) and the brand new Lentos Kunstmuseum (Contemporary Art Museum designed by Weber & Hofer Architects).  A few weeks after my visit, the Ars Electronica Festival for Art, Technology and Society took place at the Tabakfabrik. The festival posted a terrific 3d model of the site on their website.

Ars Electronica Centre

Lentos Kunstmuseum

You can see the Lentos Kunstmuseum in the distanct. It glows pink at night.

I like this map in perspective of the Cultural Quarter.

Shipping container turned bar.

WUK (Workshop and Culture House)

WUK (Pronounced “Vook”)

WUK (an acronym that translates to “Workshop and Culture House”) was created around the same time as ARENA. Here activists and artists peacefully occupied a former locomotive factory with the aim of “[promoting] an everyday culture as a life practice and [investigating] social models that support community-oriented conduct” as initially stated by members of WUK at its inception in 1980.[1] A charming Viennese architect, two generations my senior, shared the story of WUK with me. Her name is Eleonore Klein.  

I sat across from Eleonore in a traditional Viennese coffee house directly across the street from WUK. 

For more than an hour, I sat there soaking up her stories about community development, politics and architecture. With passion and humour, she told a story of perseverance, dedication, and creativity. She explained that WUK provided spaces for the arts and socially engaged groups to meet and work. They also offered a training program for disadvantaged youth and recent immigrants who helped rebuild WUK’s physical environment. 

At a time when multi-culturalism was rising in Austria and with it socio-political tension, WUK provided a safe space for cultural expression and collaboration. Now a vibrant cultural hub, WUK is thriving. The day I visited, I spoke to an artist who was exhibiting in a gallery space and then I purchased some delicious food at the local, organic market on site. 

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[1] http://www.wuk.at/WUK/Das_WUK/Organisation

ARENA & Rataplan

Located not too far from Rinderhalle, is a much smaller (former) slaughterhouse home to ARENA, a local independent rock music society. An architect named Susanne Höhndorf from Rataplan (an architecture firm involved with the redevelopment of ARENA) told me their story of community, music, and architecture. ARENA represents part of a subculture that emerged in Vienna in the 1970s as an alternative to the “high culture” tradition of Vienna. ARENA, a non-profit society, has “peacefully occupied” the slaughterhouse for thirty years. Through a long process of negotiation and protest, the City of Vienna has allowed ARENA to stay and have recently invested money to repair and improve the venue that had remained quite raw since its slaughterhouse days. ARENA is a successful music venue putting on sell-out shows consistently and maintaining its grass roots feel. 

The architects at Rataplan have been working with ARENA for upwards of fifteen years and saw them through their major renovations and contemporary additions. They not only know the project well but are personally invested in its cultural value for Vienna. As architects, they lent credibility and negotiation skills in dealing with city officials. Their approach to creating architectural solutions was inspiring. The design process was long and involved full consultation with the ARENA community. 

It was a contentious issue to bring public investment into this site run by a community on the fringe of society. Some feared they would be alienated from the new space. Rataplan came up with an economical spatial design and a construction process that allowed the ARENA community to personalize the space themselves. When I visited ARENA, I noticed that the heritage spaces referenced the past and the contemporary spaces are almost camouflaged by the graffiti but stand out as a well designed building.

I was swept up in Susanne’s story as she spoke with compassion and modesty about the process. It was a wonderful story about new architecture emerging out of a true opportunity, with the participation of the community and an outcome that is contemporary, relevant and well loved. 

Recent office building completed by Rataplan.

Rinderhalle, St. Marx

From Gasometer City, I explored the neighbourhood of St. Marx, home to medium density residential, parts of the University of Vienna, and the head quarters of communication giant, T-Mobile, which hovers over the skyline. It is also a place with many interesting adaptive reuse cultural spaces. There I found the “Rinderhalle” (translated as “cow hall”), a former slaughterhouse and an important economic driver until the 1990s.

I passed through an opening in the temporary siding and entered the space. The interior is breathtaking. It is 175 metres long and 20,000 square metres (or approximately 200,000 square feet). Restored by the City of Vienna and stripped down to its structure, it is truly elegant. The structure comprises of long span steel trusses illuminated by generous skylights. Given the former use, the place may have been kind of haunting, but instead was peaceful, sun-filled and awe-inspiring. Apparently some temporary uses including concerts and exhibitions have taken place there but a long-term permanent use hasn’t been found.