Alšova South Bohemian Gallery – Competition

The brief for the competition was to design a new building for the Alšova South Bohemian Gallery, located in the context of the wider centre of České Budějovice at the south-eastern end of Senovážné Square.

The site of the building was clearly defined within the new design of the square by Pavel Hnilička Architects+Planners, as were the regulations and the content of the building within the competition brief.

The material concept of the building is formed by a composition of cubes, which form not only the external envelope of the building, but especially the arrangement of the internal space of the building with the atrium.

The composition of the masses is also a response to the surrounding buildings and the belief that the gallery building should not appear as a monoblock. On the contrary, thanks to its solitary location within an urbanistically diverse environment, it can bring a new morphology to the square. The aim was to design a building that is more varied in form but coherent in materials, which will underline the uniqueness of the building within the life of the city.

The basic considerations for the concept of the building’s masses are based on the aforementioned conviction that for the solitary position chosen within Senovážné náměstí, it is necessary to design a materially articulated building.

To work with the mass, we have chosen as the basic shape a cube forming interlocking cubes. In our case, the basic dimension of the cube is the height of two storeys.
The basic monoblock, extruded to a height of 22 m according to the specified regulation, was transformed into a system of cubes divided in half using the selected vertical and horizontal axes and views of significant buildings, and thanks to the horizontal alignment, individual cubes were then created, copying the functional units of the building and its floor plan.

In order to support the dynamics of the building and the rhythm of the facades, parts of the above-ground floors are partially re-colonised. The cantilevers then deliberately cover the entrances to the buildings or extend the surface area of the building

The external mass of the blocks is then written into the internal layout of the building. The intention was to emphasise that the morphology should blend into the overall layout of the building and thus define the individual operational and functional units.

The ground floor of the building respects the specified building lines and is made up of two blocks. Between the blocks, a spacious entrance hall was created with an atrium running vertically through the entire building and a main entrance from the public space. For us, the parterre also symbolizes the natural flow of visitors and is thus transversal through the bookstore to the intersection.
The internal layout of the building on all floors coherently respects the mass of the blocks. The exhibition spaces, the depository, the administration and other parts of the building are thus structured according to the basic masses. Vertical communication in the building is provided by two staircase cores with lifts and sanitary facilities.

An important part of the building’s design is the interactive LED façade, made up of glass tubes reinforced with tension metal, which wraps around almost the entire gallery building.

The tubes are not only used in areas of the façade where it was necessary to materially separate the individual blocks and at the same time bring indirect lighting into the resting areas of the exhibition spaces.
Thanks to the active façade, the building can come alive with a whole spectrum of RGB colours mapped into arbitrary patterns and enter the public space as a work of art in its own right.
We believe that the façade, designed in this way, represents the direction that public gallery architecture should take in the 21st century. Not everyone will visit the gallery in person, but thanks to the artistically conceived façade they can perceive art in public space from the outside.