GOLDEN CITY


The gates of Opava‘s symbol have been locked for more than ten years and only memories of its former glory remain. “space for spaces” restores every unique corner of the house. Connects it to the new shopping centre with the surrounding spaces and transforms memories back into a living everyday reality. We understand the Breda department store as an accumulation of structures that can be a living testimony to the development of the building. The Project adds another layer that coexists with the existing ones. The main theme is a materialized crossroads, a public promenade connecting the green ring of Opava with the iconic Leopold Bauer dome from 1928. This path connects the old Breda with the new, leading visitors across all floors to the new terraced roofs and making the dome space the heart of the building once again. Gradual opening of the former department store is part of Kateřina Šedá‘s participative project, which begins with the opening of the roof as an accompanying laboratory for the whole process. The proposed programme is divided in a 30 : 70 ratio, with 30 % being a public cultural platform and 70 % being spaces for various rentals. Their specific  use is then based on the possibilities of the existing spaces - both economic and environmental - which forms the basis of the “Space for Spaces”.



Location: Charleroi, Belgium
Date: 2021
Programme: Masterplan, Housing
Client: ICA
Status: Competition
Team: Traumnovelle (architects),
 Carbonifère (landscape architects),
Terre Consortium







I. Law of the Golden City


You will love the seasons as they are
You will live without excess prostheses
You will experience time
You will become a stone, a tree,
a jay of the oaks, a trout,
a bacterium, a superhuman


II. Law of the Golden City


You will devote yourself to the arts in the fields
that you will transform into Eden here below
you will block the world


III. Law of the Golden City


You will forget the hate and the resentment
You will be aware of the need
for everything, for the great complexity


IV. Laws of the Golden City


Your life’s work will be a total art project


VI. Laws of the Golden City


You will silence the ego
You will inhabit emptiness