A concept for the redevelopment of the historic power station building of the Bytom Coking Plant has been presented. The brick building will be transformed into the seat of a museum and a showcase for the Investment Development and Vocational Activation Zone. The design for the changes was prepared by architects from the Spart studio.
The gym building was constructed in 1907 for the Julia steelworks. The south building was first built in 1900 and the north building seven years later. The exact date of construction is not certain, however, other sources indicate that 1913 or 1914 should be considered the year of construction. The gym operated in the north building, but changed its function over the years. From the 1970s onwards it was used as the electrical department, while the south section housed the assembly hall and the counting department. In the 1950s, the south section was used as a common room and from the 1970s a cloakroom operated here.
The building was built in neo-Romanesque style on an elongated rectangular plan. In total, it is 108 m long.
The Bytom Coking Plant building was entered in the register of historical monuments in 1984, so the project for its redevelopment was developed in cooperation with the Silesian Provincial Conservator of Monuments. The building will retain its historical character, but the interior will gain a different face.
The building on Konstytucji Street in Bytom is a combination of two structurally separate buildings – the gym and the hall. From the outside, not much will change, as the overriding objective was to preserve the facade layout with a clinker brick façade, which will make a sensational impression after cleaning. On the inside, basically everything will change, because in order to realise all the functions which the investor cares about, it is necessary to build a building within a building,” says Mirosław Konieczny, architect, founder of the Spart design studio.
In addition to a business incubator, an investor service centre and office space, the building will become the home of the Coke Museum. The investment will be realised on the initiative of the Bytom Coking Plant, which in the two years since the project was launched has collected and digitised dozens of interviews with former employees of the Bytom coking plant and beyond.
The Szlak Zabytków Techniki (Industrial Monuments Route), the most interesting and popular industrial tourism route in Poland, has been operating in the Silesian Voivodeship since 2006, commemorating the history of the mining, railway or steel industry, but not the coking industry. The aim of the project is clear: to promote knowledge about coke, coking plants and coking machines,” said Rafał Szostok, president of the Bytom Coking Plant, at the inauguration of the Coking Museum project.
The City of Bytom and rock wool producer Petralana are also participating in the project. The site is to become a showpiece of the emerging Investment Development and Vocational Activation Zone, which is to become an impulse for the development of the Bobrek district and Bytom as a whole.
source: Koksownia Bytom
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Photo from 2014:
Visualisations of the changes:
