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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