At the turn of the 21st century, a sports hall for tennis, squash and bowling was built on the south slope of the Líbánky valley – an inconspicuous building, attempting to be unobtrusive to viewers from the opposite slope; a building of almost industrial character such as can be seen on the periphery of any town. The designers, Brno architects Petr Hrůša and Petr Pelčák, themselves say, that it is a kind of “container” which is not trying to pass itself off as “divine classical architecture”. In spite of this, or maybe precisely due to this, the building met with approval from professionals and the public alike.
During the first phase (1998-1999), the main building was constructed, following the contours of the slope. The designers clad it with prefabricated sandwich panels of grey cement-bonded chipboard, which continue on up to the gable of the low pitched roof. The facade is broken up with light-coloured oak laths slotted into the gaps between the panels which, together with the large vertical strip windows offering imposing views over the historical skyline of the town, enhance the horizontal appearance of the building.
The brightly-coloured interior, designed using natural materials (chipboard panels, wood, aluminium, linoleum, Heraklit – a cement-bonded particle board), is in direct contrast with the exterior, and includes large-scale abstract paintings by Petr Kvíčala, well-known for his additions to contemporary architecture. The three-storey west half of the building contains a clubroom and changing rooms on the ground floor, the squash courts and a restaurant are situated on the second floor, and the third floor is reserved for the caretaker and technical facilities; the complete east half of the building contains the tennis hall which reaches up through all three floors.
During the second phase, the main entrance was built, and the ground-floor bowling hall was added at a right-angle to the main building. The bowling hall was clad with chipboard panels which gradually took on a shade of grey similar to that of the main building, thus accentuating the sole exterior artwork by Petr Kvíčala with its red-white geometric compositions.
The architects, Hrůša and Pelčák, also dealt with the immediate surroundings of the building, e.g. the stairway leading to the lower access road, braced with gabions (wire, stone-filled cages).
