A Sports Hall on St Martin’s Hill

Architect: Róbert Gutowski
Text: Dominika Vámos
Photos: Tamás Bujnovszky

The new sports hall of the Benedictine monastic community was opened in autumn 2014. Originally built in 1942, the secondary grammar school has acquired its present-day design as an organic continuation of the old complex of the abbey. In about 2007, almost 70 years after the foundation of the school, architect Robert Gutowski, who himself had graduated from here, was commissioned to design the new sports hall of the school in cooperation with his fellow architects. As the area is an UNESCO World Heritage Site, taking due care was a priority. The sports hall itself is strictly functional and has been sunk into the steep terrain which seems to be a great geothermic solution, whilst leaving the view of the Bakony Hills undisturbed. Rationalism prevailed without fail as far as the functional configuration is concerned which has been designed to be perfectly clear and transparent, much in the same way as it defines the static system of the building and the intelligent combination of natural and artificial engineering technologies.

Client: Pannonhalmi Bencés Gimnázium Alapítvány
Project coordinator: István Barcza
Leading architect: Robert Gutowski
Fellow architects: Ákos Boczkó, Péter Rabb PhD, Barnabás Dely-Steind, Emese Perneki, Anna Benke, Hunor Kovács, Gergely Tóth
Structure: Sándor Horváth
Statics: István Kerek
HVAC: László Lakner
Sport technology: Zoltán Judik
Electrical engineering: Dóra Kolb
Garden design: Attila Páll