Inside Plato Contemporary Art Gallery in Ostrava, Czechia, several visitors stand around a wall gaping in fascination. They are gazing not at art but rather at a portion of the wall that is slowly rotating open. Thick and putty-grey, the massive moveable architectural feature is adorned with the traces of the window and door once integrated into this part of the building’s facade. As it slowly opens into a position fully perpendicular to the structure, the wall reveals the view outside to the Ostrava Stodolní train station across the way and the gallery’s surrounding green space.
The rotating wall is one of six facade features in this transformation of a 19th-century slaughterhouse into a new contemporary gallery for the city....
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The Plato Contemporary Art Gallery in Ostrava, Czechia, by KWK Promes is a striking example of adaptive re-use, transforming a 19th-century brick structure into a palette of old and new.