STYLE

The Czech Hiking Club’s Petr Bezruč Chalet on Lysá Hora in the Moravian-Silesian Beskyd Montains People who visit the Moravian-Silesian Region and have time to visit the Beskyd Mountains, should try to visit Lysá hora, the highest peak of the range. The number of visitors (more than 300,000 per year) far exceeds the capacities of this peak. Until recently, there was a lack of facilities to support so many people. In the first half of this decade, two organizations invested in new buildings on Lysá Hora. AK 1342 erected the chalet Marathon while the Petr Bezruč Chalet was built by the Czech Hiking Club (KČT). Since the end of 2016, both chalets have provided a full range of food and accommodation services at the top of the mountain. Although it only took the Club of Czechoslovak Hikers (KČST) a couple of years to go from the decision in the autumn of 1932 to build the chalet to its official opening ceremony on 16 June 1935, the efforts of the re-established Czech Hiking Club to rebuild the chalet took an unbelievable twenty-five years (1990-2015)! The external shape of the new chalet is a replica of the original KČST chalet. This solution was supported by the Association of Architects, as architect Ing. František Knobloch’s original 1930s design is considered to be the most successful

attempt at designing a modern Czech mountain chalet. A comparatively small accommodation capacity was approved for the chalet. It is equipped with a modern kitchen, a large modern dining room and a tap-room (jokingly named “Knajpa”, which means dive bar), the design of which is reminiscent of the previous feeding station “Šantán”, which belonged to the original KČST chalet and in 1978, unlike the original chalet, it did not burn down. The chalet has its own source of drinking water and is also connected to the water source of the Czech Radiocommunications centre, which supplies other buildings on the top of the mountain. In addition to a large drinking water tank, it has another smaller rain tank (utility water from the roof), meaning the chalet has a double water supply; , with clean water for drinking and utility water which is used in the washrooms and toilets. The chalet is warmed using a heat pump, which draws energy

from five deep hydroelectric wells drilled into the mountain. The chalet is designed to maintain a passive, relaxing atmosphere. The outer layering is perfectly insulated; all windows have triple glazing with thermal glass. Inside, heat exchangers have been installed at every air vent from the living room and the kitchen to heat up air on intake. Solar panels have been situated on the railing of the terrace in front of the chalet, which partly covers the power consumption necessary for the heat pump. The corridor on the first floor of the building, which does not have direct illumination from the windows, is illuminated by skylights. Two terraces located in front of the main facade protrude over the slopes of the Šance water reservoir on the Ostravice river and offer a beautiful view of the large part of the Beskyd Mountains and of a Slovak mountains beyond. Thanks to its technical and spatial solutions, the chalet has become one of the most advanced buildings of its kind in our country.

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