ICE Kraków Congress Centre, Krakow,Poland

Krzysztof Ingarden

ICE Kraków Congress Centre is a modern, worldclass venue dedicated to culture—music, opera,ballet, theatre—and congresses， designed at the highest standards of acoustics and mechanics.Besides the three main halls with 2000, 600,and 300 seats, the shell holds a multifunctional conference space of 550 m2. ICE Kraków stands in the most prestigious location in Poland: opposite Wawel Castle, a location that influenced main design decisions (Figure 1—Figure 3). Hiding a multi-story foyer open to a panorama of Kraków,the Vistula embankment fa?ade is spectacularly transparent. The outer shell (Figure 4） combines glass, ceramics, and aluminum, with color ceramic tiles reflecting those of the interior: red of the Auditorium Hall, graphite of Theatre Hall, white of the foyer, and the silvery aluminum used for the roof.

Krakow is one of the oldest cities in Poland.UNESCO has classified its picturesque Old Town,with its unique architecture, as a World Heritage Site. In autumn 2014, in the historic area located at the heart of the city, a new modern conference center opened: The ICE Kraków Congress Centre.Its design was selected in an open architectural competition announced in the year 2007 by the City of Krakow.

In the autumn of 2007, the winner was announced:the consortium of Kraków-based Ingarden &Ewy Architects and the Japanese studio of Arata Isozaki. The competition jury emphasised “the harmonious combination of functional content and the particularly clear definition of the plan with a spectacular and fluent form of the entire project, gently inscribed into the open space of the Vistula embankment and making up a modest complementation of the dominant features of Na Ska?ce Church and Wawel Hill”. The design of the congress centre was not the first joint success of the two architectural studios. Earlier, Ingarden & Ewy supported Isozaki in designing and constructing the Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology in Kraków, and in another collaboration the architects won an international competition for Mystetskyi Arsenal cultural complex in Kyiv in 2008 (not realized). Subtle references to the nearby Manggha were clear already in the preliminary design of the congress centre. The liquefied shape of the roofs of the two buildings developed an interesting architectural dialogue, legible both from distant vantage points (Wawel Hill and Vistula embankments) and from the busy traffic routes by which both projects are situated. From the perspective of the entrance zone of Manggha, the two buildings seem to form a coherent architectural whole; similarly, their scale and proportions make an impression of continuation and adjustment…”

Commenting on the 2007 verdict announcing the winning design, the president of the jury in the competition, architect Bohdan Paczowski(Luxemburg), admitted that the choice between the works selected for the final round was a true challenge for the panel of judges: this was because it reflected the traditional division into the partisans of the romantic and classicist tendencies in art, and that it was finally the champions of the romantic current who determined the selection of the best design. Paczowski very truthfully and precisely grasped and emphasized one of the most significant and distinctive features of the project – besides the accurately designed functional and technological planes – was precisely the dream of developing free and open spaces, defined with curved lines and surfaces, with unconventional flows and divisions,fluently forming the interior and the external form of the Congress Centre building.

The Ingarden & Ewy architects design approach was based on four key considerations. The first and most important was the decision to use the panoramic assets of the site itself by placing a multi-storey foyer on the eastern side of the plot and by creating a space where the viewers would orbit along the curvatures of balustrades, the liquid lines of the lights, and the fantastic stairs, admiring the panorama of the City Centre (Figure 5) with the centrally situated Wawel, and Kazimierz bristling with the towers of the Church “Na Ska?ce” （on the Rock) and the bulk of St Catherine’s Church. Such a foyer forms a peculiar additional auditorium for the audience, but is yet also a stage, a place from where Kraków is admired and which, especially when lit for the night, is perfectly visible from the nearby Vistula embankments and Wawel Hill.

The second significant factor in working on the project was the creative use of the limitations,notably the need to adjust the form of the building to the geometry of the arc of the corner plot,and the recommendations of the conservation services setting a cap on its height—20 metres (65 feet) over the level of the nearby Grunwaldzkie Roundabout, with the option of exceeding the limit in spots justified by technological needs （e.g.over the stages of the auditorium halls). That had a powerful impact on the definition of the shape of the structure, the characteristic line of the roof included.

The following, third group of decisions concerned the spatial typology for the three main halls in the building: respecting the functions and numbers of spectators envisaged by the investor in each.These decisions were made in cooperation with Arata Isozaki and his team from Tokyo with whom Ingarden & Ewy collaborated on the acclaimed Kraków Manggha Museum twenty years earlier.For the main hall, with its concert and congress functions, the shape of a partial “vineyard terrace”was selected, as in this layout the auditorium embraces the stage from the sides, in this way reducing the distance between the spectators and the scene and building an intimate atmosphere despite a relatively large number of seats. The second hall with its theatrical, concert, and congress functions, was formed into a traditional front stage with a movable auditorium on the bottom level. The third hall, a hall of the “studio”type with a flat floor and flexible auditorium arrangements, allows division into two acoustically separate spaces.

The fourth pillar of the design was the definition of the fa?ade and roof. The aluminum roof, visible in its entirety from the Wawel Castle Terrace, was formed into cascades flowing down towards the Vistula, which visually diminishes the scale of the building from the side of the river and City Centre. The walls of the building are a composition of glass, ceramics, and aluminum. To open the building to a view of the city, its eastern side is glazed, while the sides and back of the building are covered with an array of ceramic tiles in colors corresponding to the color-scheme applied to the interior, with red being a reference to the color of the main hall, graphite to the color of the second hall, white as the color of the foyer, and silvery aluminum which is used for the roof finish. In the architect’s conception, such a multi-element and colorful composition is to reflect the movements and dynamics of the D?bniki district developing on the right bank of the Vistula and which only found itself within the Kraków city limits in 1909.The size of the building is thus a proposed means of defining the scale of development in this part of the city, along Konopnickiej Street, south of the Congress Centre.

It took three and a half years to complete the design and the next three and a half to construct the 36,720.33 m2of total floor area on the site area of 1,13 ha. The foyer has a glass front, ending in an apex that rises impressively towards the sky.It spans three floors and can be used for a variety of events. The spacious glass foyer acts as an intermediary between the organic form of the new building and several key elements of the city itself,including the Vistula River and the royal Wawel Castle. The building boasts a spectacular glass fa?ade facing the Vistula embankment with the multi-storey foyer offering a panoramic view of the ancient City of Kraków situated right opposite.Suspended in the foyer area is a fantastic staircase leading the visitor to the many levels of the center,and opening before them a panorama with the Wawel Castle located in center view.

Visitors can choose between several halls. The centerpiece is the huge auditorium. This space,designed to accommodate up to 2,000 guests,is reputed to be one of the best concert halls in the country. For international congresses, the auditorium features a simultaneous interpretation facility with 24 cubicles.

The other halls, like the theatre hall, which accommodates 600 guests, or the chamber hall with room for 300 guests, are also equipped with the latest conference technology. The approx. 500 square meters conference hall complex can be divided into several smaller units, or combined with the foyer and chamber hall into a 1,000 square meters exhibition and banquet space. On the top floors, there are 32 meeting rooms available for events with 6 to 30 participants. A press center,VIP area and various technical rooms are available to event organizers. Quality catering is on offer in several restaurants and bars. In addition to its stateof-the-art congress technology, the ICE also boasts a BMS.

The facility brought a new quality in the field of international events in the concert industry and meetings in Ma?opolska—prestigious cultural events and social events are organized here. It is now a business and cultural showcase of the city.The Congress Center belongs to the European network of congress facilities. “The ICE Kraków Congress Centre has received in the year 2016 the Meetings Star Award for the second year in a row for being the best congress center in New Europe, which is quite an accomplishment since no other venue has received two awards in consecutive years. This award is given to venues that offer comprehensive services with significant achievements in the meeting industry, as well as marketing and promoting events in Central and Eastern Europe. KONGRES magazine, a leading publication in the meeting industry in so-called New Europe headquartered in the capital of Slovenia, is the competition organizer.”

In addition, the object received the following prizes: S.ARCH 2016 International Project Award(Merit Award), Budva, Montenegro; Platinum A'Design Award 2015, Italy; The Plan Award 2015(Merit Award) in the Business category; Milano,Italy; Meeting Planner Power Award 2014 - for the best convention center, Ljubljana, Slovenia;The International Property Awards—5 Star Award 2014, London, Great Britain.

The combination of interesting architecture,functionality and professional service gives the basis for stating that the Center plays an increasingly important role on the meetings market in the region. The value of ICE Krakow for the city's brand is also quite significant. Since the inauguration of ICE Krakow, the city has offered the possibility of organizing international congresses that previously could not be hosted due to the lack of adequate infrastructure. It should also be remembered that the object generates economic impact for the city—revenue for ICE Kraków also causes revenue in the services sector(transport, hotel, gastronomy, individual tourism,trade, event services, event equipment suppliers),which translates into significant tax revenues to the city budget. All meetings in Krakow in 2013 generated nearly PLN 1 067.9 million of GDP,which accounted for about 2.37% of the total Kraków City income. Importantly, the meetings industry also generated jobs. On average, one oneperson meeting created around 4.89 a full-year job, and all meetings that took place in Krakow in 2013 generated over 12,000 full-year jobs.According to the data of another report - prepared by Poland Convention Bureau Ma?opolska and Krakow (mainly thanks to the Congress Center)ranked second in the country in terms of organized business meetings - conferences, congresses, trade fairs, corporate events. The result of Krakow is 18.86% of meetings that took place throughout the country. The number of meetings reported by the meeting facilities in the Ma?opolskie region in 2013 was almost twice as high as in the previous year.