The Congress Centre in Kraków

Competition design – 3rd award: October 2007.

Authors: Ph.D. Arch. Marek Kozień, Ph.D. Arch. Magdalena Kozień-Woźniak, M.Sc. Arch. Katarzyna Kozień-Kornecka.

Cooperation: Arch. Arch. Małgorzata Szewczyk, Michał Rączka, Magdalena Habrat – Rączka, Joanna Filipek, Michał Kornacki.

Acoustics: Jan Rączy, Grzegorz Sznyterman.

Plot area: 1.14 ha.
Plot area : 11 084 m ².
Development area: 8 201 m ².
Total area: 38 818 m ².
Usable area: 29 234 5 m ².
Cubature: 209 768 m ³.

Investment cost: 190.000.000 PLN net (without VAT).

Auditorium: 1 800 seats. Main Hall: 600 seats.

Multipurpose Chamber: 260 seats.

Opinion of the Competition Jury
"The design received an award for:
An interesting attempt to integrate the central area in the form of terraces creating a new topography of the place;
The creation of a multilevel public space climbing the roof of the building;
A clear functional solution of the basic elements of the programme;
A synthetic form in the décor of the Auditorium emphasizing its congress character."

Authorial description:Extended over the location area, a homogeneously formed covering developed from the transformations of a plane which was dissected, drawn apart and then connected by a "comb" plane. The principle of dissecting and drawing apart resulted from an analysis of the technological needs of the Centre rooms and the accepted idea of a strip, orderly functional system.

The situational limitations imposed the principle of a layout of the elements of the square rising in the W-Z direction in accordance with the rule of a functional layout.
The covering plane and the shape of the plot determined the directions of the full object opening to the northeast and the west. Such a position proved the most suitable for the scenic opening from the foyer and the floor galleries in the Auditorium to the full panorama of Wawel and Kazimierz as well as the opposite view opening for the main hall foyer towards Kościuszko Mound and Dębniki Church. The elementary assumption of the design is the linear position of all the centre rooms set with the stages to each other for their simple mutual connection with the zone of storerooms and technical service.

In order not to block the courses of decoration transport, a principle was accepted to separate it from internal actor transport and set these routes in lines on the opposite sides of the stages.