The city wants a new spa center of Sopot to be built next to St. Adalbert's Spa, on Bitwy Pod Plowcami Street. An architectural and urban planning competition for the design of the Sopot Spa Center will be announced in late April/early May. Pace will be judged by an international jury, and the results will be announced later in the fall.
Sopot's spa roots date back to 1823, when Jan Jerzy Haffner built a bathing establishment and the first Spa House was built just a year later. The influx of visitors was increasingly evident in the space of the resort, a park was built and the longest wooden pier in Europe. The city received official status as a health resort in 1999, today there are five spa treatment facilities. And the city authorities have announced that this function will be developed.
In late April and early May, an international architectural and urban planning competition will be announced for the design of the Sopot Spa Center, which will be built on Bitwy pod Plowcami Street. The location is not accidental, this is where the St. Adalbert's Spa is located. The new building will house an inpatient facility, a spa clinic, a sanatorium and a therapeutic rehabilitation facility with brine pools.
New spa center of Sopot
For a long time we have been analyzing what kind of offer, based on brine, to present to residents and visitors. We are after many discussions and analyses, and we see how great the demand for such services is. We decided to focus on spa rehabilitation. Hence the decision to locate the treatment center on land belonging to the city here, where we have an intake of Sopot brine. This is where the new spa center of Sopot will be built, " noted Magdalena Czarzyńska-Jachim, acting mayor of Sopot.
Importantly, the competition committee will include foreign designers. Until now, the infamous peculiarity of Tri-City competitions was that the jury was dominated by officials, investor representatives and local - still the same - architects. It was in vain to look for architectural stars, although exceptions were Daniel Libeskind in the competition for the World War II Museum or George Fergusson and Eva Jiricna in the competition for the ECS.
The competing designs for the Sopot Cure Center will be judged by Thornbjorn Andersson, Sweco Architects (Sweden), Yuki Ikeguchi, chief architect of Kengo Kuma&Associates (Japan) and Alice Dietsch, director of Studio AL_A (UK). The international competition committee will also include Polish architects, including Prof. Ewa Kurylowicz and Prof. Rafal Janowicz.
health architecture
Prof. Ewa Kurylowicz stresses that interest in this kind of architectural competitions and projects is growing because there is a growing demand.
Theworld has been talking about "health architecture" for many years, and such facilities are being built in city centers, and not, as in the past, in peripheral districts. We hope to see the results of this design competition in the fall, and it won't be easy. These kinds of buildings are saturated with technology, not just hospital technology. Besides, great importance is attached today to mental, emotional issues, to the well-being of the people who will rest and heal here. This is related to space, to form. Architecture will play a huge role here ," explains Prof. Ewa Kurylowicz.
This facility will give a completely new quality to the spa offer in the city , believes Marek Bogacki, a member of the Board of Directors of AQUA Sopot.
The preliminary schedule calls for the architectural and urban planning competition to be decided at the beginning of the fourth quarter of this year. The design documentation will be created in 2025-2026, and construction will start at the turn of 2026 and 2027. The estimated cost of building the Sopot Curaçao Center is nearly 250 million zlotys. The city hopes to attract external funding.
