Palace of Electric Enterprises

[info]Palace of Electric Enterprises
Studio: TaK Architects
Author: Marek Tichý
Project location: Bubenská 1, 170 00 Prague 7; Czech Republic
Award: * Finalist of the Czech Architecture Award 2022
Co-author: Pavla Brůžová, Jana Kulíková
Design team: AED Project a.s, www.aedproject.cz
Project year: 2017
Completion year: 2020
Built-up Area: 7 862 m²
Gross Floor Area: 38 450 m²
Usable Floor Area: 34 067 m²
Plot size: 7 996 m²
Dimensions: l x w x h = 110 x 79 x 31 m
Cost: 52 mil. €
Client: CPI Property Group
Collaborator
Technical design: AED Project, www.aedproject.cz
Statics: Building STATICS, www.building-statics.cz
Heating and cooling: Lubomír Guziur
Air ventilation: František Kubec
House installations: IKKO [Bohuslav Kouba], www.ikko.cz
Heavy current system: ACDC [Jiří Schaffer, Ivana Kadlecová]
IT design: Forgys [Ivo Tříska]
BMS: RM Plan [Vladimír Píša], www.rmplan.cz
Fire specialist: František Chuděj, Pavol Ondruš
Photographer: KIVA, foto@kiva.cz, www.kiva.cz[/info]

The project brings new techniques and technologies, indicates a way to the renovation of similar interwar buildings. A breakthrough was the reconstruction of the cladding with an accent on architectural expression, but also the interiors joining authentic restoration and the details of new built-ins and functional parts. The core is the office part in the five-storey nave of the central hall lined with galleries around the perimeter. The dispositionally closed core is loosened towards the wings of the building and upwards into open layouts. The renovation includes adjoining spaces, former exhibition galleries, business units with relation to the exterior complemented by modern parterre detail.

The building construction is a ferroconcrete monolithic skeleton based on concrete footings, supplemented on the last two floors by a steel skeleton. The main moments of the reconstruction associated with the partial operational conversion were the complete rehabilitation of foundations formed by aluminous concrete, replacement of the perimeter claddings and filling of openings, replacement of technological systems with regard to the valid fire technology and control legislation and the creation of automatic parking stacker in considerable parts of basements. The restoration was technically complicated as historical elements were supplemented by the current architecture. Total restoration of facades involves the development and production of copies of large wooden and steel windows, construction of new glazed roofs over the original glass-concrete roofs improved the thermal-technical quality in all atriums. The installed technologies represent a shift in economics and operational efficiency.

It is important to consider the structurally extensive and technically exceptional reconstruction and conversion of the Electric Enterprise Building from the point of view of interdisciplinary collaboration. This building can certainly be characterised as one of the largest and most technically demanding reconstructions of an object with special architectural or historic interest in the Prague area, among other things due to the construction intervention scale, involvement of specialized teams of different fields and a virtually laboratory search of the final solution has been conducted for many years. In this regard, it offers a multitude of new information about interwar architecture and the possibility of its renewal. The construction historians and restorers as well as colleagues from the field of structure failure, construction materials and construction laboratory were in this case pivotal. The task is specific not only for its contemporaneity, but mainly for the fact that the Electric Enterprise Building is a vast constructional complex. It was necessary to introduce new methodology for structural and historic analysis and documentation of individual elements and its group, for the usually applied methods would not be adequate or usable for an object of such magnitude. During a search for the reconstruction method, it is in general necessary to seek a solution that would not be applied sporadically or in a limited area, but which would be used on a massive scale in areas of many thousands of square meters, and in a supply comprising generally of hundreds and thousands of pieces. Thus, construction and technological techniques predominantly need to be realised by regular construction suppliers or selected suppliers under the scrutiny of renovators.

Renewal and preservation of the Czech interwar architecture building fund – which is outstanding not only for the quality of its work, but also serves as a proof and legacy of the First Czechoslovak Republic – is nowadays a new task, a challenge facing architects, construction professions and historical preservation. With regard to architecture and technical field, the majority of objects are more than just a prototype or, if you want, a manifesto. Rather plentiful are the buildings which cannot be renewed due to inappropriately selected technical solutions at the time of their construction. Nevertheless, it is necessary to preserve them, as they are an unforgettable part of historic architecture.