Yesterday, on 22nd of December, deconstruction works on the Railway Station’s main hall started. It will take several weeks to take the building to pieces. The demolition works are conducting by Trans-Ziem. Today, workers tore down a first pillar of the main hall. In February 2011, construction works of the transportation hub, the new Railway Station and Galeria Katowicka will be launched by Strabag, the prime contractor of the investment.
Before the demolition, a structure of the building including the unique system of 16 cap-shaped pillars supporting the roof was scanned using latest technology solutions – according to the investor the laser scanning saved characteristics of the structure and it will enable to reconstruct the pillars precisely. A new bus station and Dworcowa Street will be both located six meters below the ground under the new rebuilt Railway Station’s hall.
The Katowice Railway Station, raised in 1972, was designed by notable Polish architects called Warsaw Tigers: Wacław Kłyszewski, Jerzy Mokrzyński and Eugeniusz Wierzbicki. Its construction was worked out by a world-renowned engineer Wacław Zalewski, Professor Emeritus of Structural Design at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The building is an example of the world’s engineering and Brutalist architecture. As it was in the Katowice hall, the style is characterized by exposed rough concrete revealing the textures of the wooden forms in which it had been poured.
