Competition for the building of Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice

The Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra building is another facility developed through a competition, situated in the Saucer (or Spodek) area at the axis leading to the Silesian Museum. The achievements of the two previous competitions and the Saucer itself set a distinct trend in the formation of public spaces and their relations to the proposed development. The proposed design reflects the acceptance of the existing formula for the organization of a composition “Axis” and creates a new facility situated upon it – a square with a building. This results in a series of three large-scale squares/structures with a clearly defined function, formed in a similar way, yet different – a passage from the depression/square in front of the Saucer flanked by built development, via a depression/square with sizeable massing of the Building, to a platform square with small but numerous structures of the Museum. The passage graded along these lines corresponds to the variability of the form of the development – from large-scale massing of the Saucer to the Conference Centre and the Regional Railway Board, to the fragmented development of the Museum, and finally a green complex stretching behind the Museum along Warszawska street.
The square and the Building form a single entity. The depression/square sloping down towards the Building entrance and its public spaces seems to put them at the very centre. With its public spaces, the Building opens up mainly to the Square, lending a particularly privileged character to its part situated in front of the Building entrance. The basaltic slope of the square – the area in front of the Building entrance – forms a uniform dark-grey surface. Its smoothness contrasts with the other three “rough” slopes of the square, where a dominant part of the floor is made of black basalt chippings, merging with basalt slabs where the intensity of pedestrian traffic so requires. While covered with black chippings, the slopes of the square are not black; viewed perpendicularly to their inclination, they will be predominated by low green grass growing in oblong plots cutting across the slopes, with strongly vertical birches, their white-and-black trunks, together with the facade of the Building, designed to form a kind of transparent spatial enclosure flanking it from three sides.