In the Czech Republic, renovated windmills bring culture and art closer to the people
With the help of local and European funding, architect Lukáš Smetana is giving a second life to the magnificent mills at Pardubice, 100 kilometres from Prague. The aim is to turn the site into a cultural hotspot for the region.
The millstones grounded wheat for over a hundred years in the Czech regional city of Pardubice. Then, the historical automatic mills, designed by the famous Czech architect Josef Gočár, finally stopped operating in 2013. Like many other industrial areas around Europe, the mills lost their original purpose and were left to a slow decay. Two years later, the millers offered the mills at a bargain basement price, sparking the interest of developers. On the day of the presale inspection for the potential buyers, many expensive cars parked in front of the mills. Only one taker arrived by train. And this one was, against all odds, set to secure the mills for his family and breathe new life into them.
Lukáš Smetana was 38 years old when he decided to invest the money he gathered with his small business into a property in Czechia. The initial idea to buy two investment apartments in a prominent area in the capital city of Prague got shaken up when he discovered the historical mills on offer for about the same price. Coming from an architectural background and surrounded by many great professionals in the field, he was quickly convinced about the potential of the objects. “I got in touch with cultural organisations that organised cultural events there from time to time. The architect Gočár created a building that people loved right from the start – when it still served its original purpose and after. It became a new landmark of the city,” Smetana says.
He quickly discovered that the monthly operating costs were high, so he bid an even lower price than initially stated. Surprisingly enough, his offer still turned out to be the highest and so soon after the sale, Smetana and his wife took over the bunch of 212 keys to the mills’ area. “We bought it because we believed in the potential of a brownfield close to the city centre, but at the beginning, we had no clear vision of what we want to turn it into,” Smetana admits.
The issue was pressing. Smetana needed to push down the monthly costs and started looking for inspiration abroad, mainly in Germany. And as it wasn’t too hard to find successful examples of brownfield transformations, a new promising era of the automatic mills could begin.
The new face of industrial sites
During the second half of the 20th century, production in many industrial areas came to an end. As the emergence of the global market completely transformed the production chains’ dynamic, European society’s needs also started to change. With industrial production being largely outsourced outside the old continent or concentrated in new centres, the demand for services, technology and creative projects has risen sharply. We entered the era of a post-industrial society.
This transition left behind thousands of industrial objects whose destiny was uncertain. Formerly buzzing production centres turned into useless ghost towns, often occupying the precious land in city areas. The status of cultural heritage was granted to many of them, as was the case with the automatic mills in Pardubice. Yet that alone cannot save them. Vacant land is a scarce commodity in modern urban centres. Therefore, adapting the unique old industrial building to new purposes seems to be the most effective solution.
Creatives and business people in the Western world have been slowly discovering the potential of industrial buildings since the sixties, but the real boom of brownfield transformations has been blooming only in the last two or three decades. Now, the concept is also becoming accessible to creatives outside major Western cities, opening the door for what contemporary society is thirsting for in capitals and regions alike: space for new ideas and community building.
In the nineties, the public debate encountered a new term: creative clusters. The idea of concentrating multiple creative businesses and initiatives “under one roof” proved successful, for example, in Berlin, which became famous for its many lively cultural sites based in old industrial spaces. These centres became popular not only with local creatives and regular citizens who come there to gather and relax but also with tourists from all around the world who fell for the unique atmosphere of these places. The transformed sides boosted the city’s creative potential and contributed to economic prosperity.
“These projects allow the effective revitalisation of decaying city areas. Not that the countryside would be left behind, but in cities, these objects are visible to more people who run across them daily. Thanks to the transformation, the economic activity gets kick-started again, new job vacancies arise, investors start smelling the opportunity, and the overall quality of locals’ lives improves,” says the Czech academic Petr Kunc, who researches the topic.
Haggling over every brick
As promising as the solution of brownfield transformation may sound, investors often encounter unforeseen complications when putting their plans into praxis. As the costs are usually very high, the revitalisation typically requires the cooperation of the private and public sectors. Investors often rely on subsidies to make their visions turn into reality. These processes can be lengthy and full of bureaucracy. The Automatic mills in Pardubice were granted a 17-million-euro subsidy from the EU, covering nearly half of the total costs for the transformation. The city and the country region invested almost the same amount of money and bought up two out of three main buildings. The state and Smetana private foundation covered the remaining expenses.
Despite some minor difficulties during the process, Lukáš Smetana, the head of the project, is happy with the overall cooperation and money distribution. “I think that, especially in the cultural and educational field, the subsidies make a lot of sense. I knew I would make it all happen somehow, even without the EU money, but we would have to eliminate many cool features like environmentally friendly geothermal heating in the building. The area would turn out more commercial and less open to the public,” he says.
Another challenge for brownfield investors often poses the cultural heritage label many of these sites take pride in. The automatic mills became a national cultural heritage in 2014, just a year before Smetana bought them. That meant that every single brick became a subject of haggles with the historic preservation office. Only thanks to the backup of renowned architects did Smetana convince them to approve his plans.
Make people care
Smetana planned to build a complex that could be profitable long-term, or at least not in the red. “I am a simple man. I was thinking about how it comes that football or hockey can draw in crowds, and cultural projects often fail to do that. Then I realised that people want to be seen,” he says.
Now, Smetana is setting up a path for collaboration with influential people, offering organisation of teambuilding and free time activities for business people and their employees. “In that way, we manage to get culture and art close to people who wouldn’t apriori care about it otherwise, and we create the image of a place where people want to be seen. After all, about 150 thousand people visit the mills during the year – that is not a small number,” Smetana claims. He admits, though, that the way to a profitable business is still long as he expects to reach the zero profit-loss balance of the public area in about three years from now.
What he appreciates the most about the project is the community feeling. “We are basically in my garden now,” he says in the interview which takes place in the square between the mills’ buildings. “I am a family type, and this city feels like a big village to me. I can feel a strong sense of community here; local people know how to enjoy public spaces.”
The visitors second his sentiment. Most people coming to the mills are locals from the city; only about 10 per cent are long-distance tourists. On an early Friday afternoon, some people are having coffee and ice creams from a local café and food truck standing on the square. It looks like parents with little children especially enjoy the space, which offers the possibility to play and relax at the same time. “We come here regularly to have a coffee since the mills opened for the public last autumn. We even attended a couple of cultural events here, concerts and a market before Christmas, and it was great,” says a young couple sitting in the sun on the square while their baby sleeps in a pram next to them. A regional gallery, a gallery of contemporary art with residence ateliers, a super modern educational centre for technical disciplines run by the city, a panoramic terrace, a café, open-air yoga classes and cultural events… Those are just some of the things people can already enjoy in the Automatic mills. More is to come with the second reconstruction phase, including new small shops, a bakery and three residential apartments. One of them will stay in the hands of the Smetana family. “We already live close by and want to move here permanently. I already consider the mills my home,” the project’s initiator says.
This article was produced as part of The Newsroom 27 competition, organised by Slate.fr with the financial support of the European Union. The article reflects the views of the author and the European Commission cannot be held responsible for its content or use.
