pilsner urquell

The most difficult part of the brief was to devise how groups of 50 people could be logically and unidirectionally showed through the former industrial building in ten-minute intervals. The answer to this puzzle is a new vestibule, an added glazed panoramic lift shaft, and restored 1st and 2nd storeys of the Brewery on the south-east side of the Pilsner Urquell complex. The huge lift addition was wedged among the historically fanciful cluster of crystals of buildings. It is the largest passenger lift in the Czech Republic; the car ca 20 square meters in area. The vestibule on the ground floor was conceived as a simple cubical volume jacketed in Copilit blocks (glass panels) with the back side of the channel profile anchored in front of the aureate façade as an analogy to glass & beer. The attic of the old brewing house is presented as a unique room – a longitudinal loft with an inserted sensual installation (after it was stripped of old structural sediments) presenting primary raw materials used for brewing beer. A 7-minute film about the production process projected on a circular panoramic screen precedes this exhibition. The brewing house 1-6 is cleared to match the style of the 1930s – visible elements of brewing technology were professionally restored. Brewing cauldrons were partly restored, either, together with partially renovated agitator drives; walls and floors were newly finished or patched, where necessary. Twenty-four copies of original suspension lights were manufactured for the Brewery. Inserted elements such steel staircases, re-designed extra-high doors, and similar should naturally contrast with the original industrial substance.