Renovation and refurbishment of an old malthouse in the historical centre of Písek
The malthouse is a part of a former brewery, located directly in the city centre. The brewery has been in disrepair since the 1990s. An association was established to make use of one of the largest structures, the malthouse. The malthouse was converted into a children’s adventure space with several attractions – Ant-hill: a wooden maze resembling an interior of an ant-hill; Pilařiště – a section decorated with drawings of Radek Pilař, famous Czech children’s illustrator; Illustrator’s Nest – a section dedicated to illustrations in films, comic strips or books. All the adventures were designed by renowned artists and present a very attractive space for children of all ages. The exposition on illustrations goes beyond traditional display, it enables, for example, a whole school class to attend and use the workshop facilities to create simple animations of, for example, the process of a plant growing. Thus, even classes of subjects not directly linked to art, for example, biology, in this case, can be performed there. Local schools take advantage of having such a facility in their neighbourhood and the local school children are frequent visitors to the site.
Resources needed
There were multiple funding sources, each for a different part of the project. The structural part was partly funded by Regional Operational Programme, the exposition part was funded by the Transborder Interreg CZ-AT programme.
Evidence of success
The visitor rate is higher than expected, over the past three years it exceeded 40K visitors annually. The initiative has created 14 jobs and the outcome is very welcome by local residents and schools.
Difficulties encountered
Main challenges:
- large renovation works in the historical city centre (logistics, noise, dust)
- legal form (solved by setting up a municipal subsidiary organization)
- creation of an attractive content
Potential for learning or transfer
This project presents a great potential for knowledge transfer – mainly from the point of view of the concept. The creation of a space with interesting content, whatever topic it covers, linked with education and some local links (Písek has a long tradition of film animations) leads to a facility visited by local citizens on regular basis and enables parents to both spend active time with their children on one side and leaving their offspring to explore and enjoy the attraction on their own on the other side.
Tags: Cultural heritage, Education, Management
