A handful of interesting things about the open-air theatre in Vychodna

(Vychodna, July 3, 2008, Anton Oberhauser) – In a couple of hours, voices and tones of the greatest folklore festival in Slovakia will resound under the Krivan Mountain. On Friday July 4th, the first evening of the 54th Folklore festival, Pavel KRUPA, mayor of Vychodna will accept from the hands of Jaroslav JARABEK, General Manager of Inzinierske Stavby a symbolic key from the open-air theatre. The building, which represents a strong impulse for preservation of unique traditions in these modern times, is finally ready.  

The object itself is unique as well – it is the first big building of modern architecture in Slovakia focused mainly on the cultural and social purposes. “I can’t remember that somebody would built a building of this sort in Slovakia after 1989 – made mostly of wood, it is not a hotel or private residence, but we speak of entirely cultural centre, value of which for the region and Slovakia cannot be expressed in any money. We have a very special feelings for this building, since our company operates in Liptov region for decades”, said Ing. J. Jarabek, MBA, General Manager and President of the Board of Directors of Inzinierske stavby, the general contractor for the construction of the complex. The total costs were more than 83,5 mil. Slovak crowns, out of which the significant part was granted from EU funds, the municipality contributed 5%. According to Mgr. Pavol Krupa, mayor of Vychodna, the cultural centre will serve also other purposes such as hunters´ or shepherds´ Sundays, meetings of countrymen or concerts of rock music. Builders created in the complex of the open-air theatre also a congress centre for approximately 50 delegates.

The tower which has observatory, so called ”majka”, was finished only lately. It is
28 m tall and offers a nice view on the surrounding countryside. Ing. arch. Igor Karkošiak, the author of the architectural design and a native from Liptov, was inspired by Slovak wooden bell towers and fire towers, such as can be found in Vlkolinec, a village entered in the UNESCO Cultural and Natural Heritage list.

Paradoxically, though the project was realized approximately two years after the catastrophic wind throw damage of High Tatras, in which millions of cubic meters of wood were blown down, builders had problems in getting the wood for the construction of the open-air theatre.  Finally, they acquired the wood from the Association of Forest owners from Liptovska Teplicka.  Builders used 1 050 m3  of sawn wood which roughly corresponds to 21 traditional wooden houses (log-cabins), each having  80m2  of living space. Just as a matter of interest, in Podbiel, a village in Orava, there is 64 wooden houses of which 28 in one row creates a unique landmark called Borova rala.
The construction drew mostly on the traditional building technique employed in our folk culture. For example, wooden log walls are connected in the corners by so called dovetail joint which is typical feature of log-cabins found only on the territory of former Czechoslovakia. During the construction steel pillars, wooden truncated trusses and reinforced concrete constructions were employed as well.  Building itself took 29 months – since August 2005 till December 2007. For the construction of the complex of the new open–air theatre in Vychodna was used 7500 m3 of soil, 2100 m3 of concrete, and 6000 m2 of wooden shingles. The area concerned takes 43 482 m2  with the official audience capacity of 7800 viewers. Finalizing works were carried out this year as well.

The Inžinierske stavby, a. s., which was established in 1951, built a major part of the highway in Horny Liptov. The company is currently finalizing part D1 of the highway between Vazec and Mengusovce.  In 2004 an international construction group Colas based in France joined the company and became a majority shareholder.