Following a competition organized by the Polish city of Krakow, Arup is to provide venue consulting and auditorium acoustic design for the city’s new Congress Centre and Concert Hall. The competition was won by Ingarden & Ewy Architects as lead architects, with Arata Isozaki & Associates as design consultant. Ingarden & Ewy invited Arup to cooperate on the project.

The Centre will comprise a 1,800-seat auditorium, which will provide a concert hall for symphonic performances, a 600 seat auditorium, and a 300 seat hall, plus smaller meeting spaces. Arup is providing building services engineering design, which includes services such as ventilation, heating and plumbing, as well as acoustic and venue consultancy.

Raf Orlowski, project leader at Arup Acoustics, says: “In the past 20 years, Krakow has become a magnet for tourists, business people, artists, and writers alike. This Centre will be pivotal in reinforcing Krakow’s position as a center of culture and business excellence; being designed for classical, contemporary, and 20th century music, the facility will have the best look and sound for any building of its kind in Poland.”

Polish architect Krzysztof Ingarden, who designed the Kracow City Information and Exhibition Pavilion Wyspianski 2000, which opened last year in the center of the city, says: “Krakow citizens, as well as musicians and composers living and performing here, such as composer Krzysztof Penderecki, have been waiting for a facility as good as this for years. The city needs the highest quality music hall and congress space, and I am really glad we won the competition and were able to form a fantastic team to design it.”

Arata Isozaki, who also designed the Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology in Krakow and is working on The University of Central Asia's three campuses in Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan, added: “Krakow is evolving and the building of the Congress Centre is a key project for the city.”

Construction is expected to start in 2010, with completion scheduled for two years later.