The new congress complex in the capital of the Silesian Voivodeship is surrounded by notable new buildings - the concert hall of the National Symphony Orchestra of the Polish Radio and the Silesian Museum, which includes the museum-grade Warsaw mine complex. All this is part of the development program for the 20 hectares that have been empty in the center of Katowice for a long time, where coal was previously mined. This urban development project with a pronounced cultural component is one of the largest in the country.
However, for the project of the Polish bureau JEMS, it was not this ambitious plan that became decisive, but the neighborhood with the monument of modernism, the sports and concert center "Spodek" (1964–71). This building is a symbol of the city and the province, the square with the roundabout in front of it is the main transport hub of Katowice, a little further - the famous
monument to the participants of the Silesian uprisings. The authors of the new congress center in no way wanted to compete with the "saucer" (as spodek is translated), but their construction in terms of its scale and significance could not and be invisible as a reflection of the modern aspirations of the city - the center of Poland's largest agglomeration - Upper Silesian.
As a result, the congress center with an area of almost 38 thousand m2 and a height of 16-18 m is designed as a spectacular volume, inscribed, however, in the terrain. Among other things, it serves as a public space: through the building there is a pedestrian path from the oldest part of the city, the Bogučice district, to the aforementioned traffic junction in front of “Spodek”. This path is laid on two levels: through the building - its main hall and vestibule, and along its roof, more precisely, through the “green valley” dividing the volume of the building into two unequal parts (the vestibule overlap located under it is the “imprint” of the bottom of this “valley ). The greened part of the roof serves not only for recreation of the townspeople, but also for holding exhibitions and any other outdoor events.
The congress center includes a multifunctional hall with an area of about 8000 m2 and a capacity of up to 12 thousand people, a banquet hall (about 1200 m2, up to 1000 people), an auditorium (about 600 m2, 600 seats), as well as 18 conference rooms with a total with an area of about 1650 m2 (up to 1200 people). The project budget was about 393 million zlotys (93 million euros). Its customer was the Katowice administration.
