The Liberec University is demolishing old workshops and searching for a contractor for a new building

Liberec - Demolition of the former workshop building continues in the campus of the Technical University of Liberec, and the school is also looking for a contractor for the new building that will replace it. The new building will house the Faculty of Economics, the university library will move there, and part of the Faculty of Textile Engineering, specifically the Department of Design. A significant portion will be occupied by the Center for Simulation Medicine of the Faculty of Health Studies. The new building should be completed in three years, said university spokesman Radek Pirkl today.

Only the walls of the ground floor and the first floor remain of the original building E2. "Along with the demolition, static investigations are being carried out simultaneously to ensure the safest dismantling possible. According to the monitoring days we have on the construction site, the demolition is proceeding according to schedule, and it should be completed by November 15," Pirkl added. As soon as possible, work on the construction of the new building, which will cost hundreds of millions of crowns, should begin, according to him. The deadline for interested parties to apply for the contract ends on October 9.

The University of Liberec was established from the original College of Mechanical Engineering founded in 1953. "Three blocks of classrooms, laboratories, offices, and heavy workshops - E1, E2, E3 - were built by the university on Husova Street according to the design of architect Eduard Adamíra from Stavoprojekt starting in 1957. They were completed in 1965. The two outer blocks continue to serve their purpose to this day, and part of the workshops in the middle block was transformed into a university kindergarten and student club between 2013 and 2014," Pirkl added.

The university already has a building permit for the new building, which is to have four wings and a covered central courtyard. "The building will have five above-ground floors, gradually retreating from the third floor," said the university spokesman. The school has obtained European grants totaling 380 million crowns for the project and will contribute additional funds from its own resources. Due to the demolition and construction of the new building, the transport department had to relocate, and the university library moved to the basement of a neighboring building. The kindergarten also had to move.

This is not the first similar project at the Technical University of Liberec; over the past 15 years, the university has invested more than 1.5 billion crowns in campus development. The largest project was the Institute for Nanomaterials, Advanced Technologies, and Innovations, building L, with a cost of nearly 800 million crowns.