Tartu City Government has announced an open international contest for a new multifunctional cultural hub (Deadline: 5 May)
The single-stage competition, organised by the Estonian Association of Architects, seeks proposals for a new cultural centre and landscaped public space on a prominent 4.6ha site on the banks of river Emajõgi in the centre of Tartu Old Town.
The new building will feature a city library, art museum, event centre with multifunctional black-box performance space and other facilities along with a ’biologically diverse and active park and human scale public space’.
Contest site: Tartu, Estonia
Credit: Image by Maanus Kullamaa
Urmas Klaas, mayor of Tartu, said: ‘There has been a lot of talk about the Downtown Cultural Centre in Tartu and elsewhere.
‘We expect architects to come up with solutions that take into account the sensitive location of the building and offer opportunities to bring together various cultural fields and communities.’
Located around 186 kilometres southeast of the Estonian capital Tallinn, Tartu is a hitoric city with a local population of around 91,000 residents. In 2016, Tartu University – which owns around 150 buildings including four museums and a botanical gardens – held a contest for a new IT faculty which was won by ICONICUM.
High-profile recent design contests in Estonia have include the Port of Tallinn masterplan won by Zaha Hadid Architects in 2017, the Museum of Red Terror won by Japanese architect Shuhei Endo in 2018, and the Rail Baltica terminal won by Zaha Hadid Architects in 2019.
Contest site: Tartu, Estonia
Last year the Tallinn Architecture Biennale held a contest for ideas to radically rethink the city’s Soviet-era Lasnamäe housing estate. The winning concept will feature in the city’s architecture biennale from 7 September to 31 October.
The winner of the Tartu downtown cultural centre will receive a €60,000 top prize and be invited to further develop the project. A second prize of €40,000 euros, third prize of €20,000 euros and three special rewards each worth €10,000 will also be awarded.
Judges will include Klaas; Tartu public library director Kristina Pai; Joanna Hoffmann, director of Tartu art museum; Enrique Sobejano from Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos in Spain; and Lina Ghotmeh of Lina Ghotmeh Architecture in France.
