Heavy snowfall greeted builders of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra’s new seat (PNRSO) on the Wednesday morning. Despite the winter and bad weather conditions, Warbud has completed to mount eleven huge girders that will support the great concert hall’s roof and delivered the construction ahead the schedule.
Each of the girders is 33 meters long, 3 meters high and weighs 22 tons. This steel structure will hold the concert hall’s waved ceiling, acoustic plafond and other technical infrastructure, i.e. maintenance platforms, all installed under the girders. The final roof construction will be situated above. The whole fore-mentioned structure will weigh approximately 1 200 tons. “In fact this will be the last part of the construction stage as we have already conducted all concrete works. Installations, outfitting and technical equipment works are underway at the underground level and soon will be also commenced on the remaining floors” – said Grzegorz Strzelczyk, construction site manager at Warbud, a prime contractor of the undertaking.
The great concert hall will be the most important part of the Tomasz Konior project. Now, the interior of the hall is full of scaffoldings holding the steel, waved ceiling – its irregular shape was designed to create a perfect sound image. The whole building is being built in compliance with the best acoustic standards prepared by the Japanese Nagata Acoustics. Representatives of the firm will soon start to work on the site to supervise the outfitting of the great and chamber halls.
The massive great hall dominates over the central part of the building and is characterized by walls exposing black concrete and revealing the textures of the wooden forms in which it had been poured. The black walls will be cleaned and impregnated. Both concert halls will be completely separated from the venue’s remaining parts. 1 800 small holes will be drilled under the audience seats. This solution will be applied to provide the air inside the hall and to avoid installation of a noisy air-conditioning system. All of these solutions are to be implemented because of the most important criterion – the perfect acoustic.
Inspired by the Upper Silesian architecture (i.e. the Katowice housing estate “Nikiszowiec“), the PNRSO seat’s elevation will be covered by hundreds of thousands of clinker bricks. “The facade will be lined with 410 000 bricks. Works are planned to be commenced in April. We also expect about 120 heavy lorries which will carry granite slabs to be used, among others, for landscaping works around the venue” – Grzegorz Strzelczyk added. The building will border upon a park and amphitheater. A square with a fountain will be built in front of the main entrance.
At present, between 300 and 350 workers are involved in the construction work every day. The number will increase to at least 500 people during the outfitting stage.
