The City will help fund the “Black Cube” project
Ostrava’s City Assembly has approved the provision of 150 million CZK as a subsidy to support the “Black Cube” project, which will create a regional research library incorporating a centre for digitalization and innovation.
Visualisation by Kuba a Pilař architekti s.r.o.
The recipient of the funding will be the Moravian-Silesian Region, the project coordinator, and the agreement to provide the subsidy was formalized in a 2018 memorandum concluded between the City, the Region and the Czech Ministry of Culture.
The new library building will be home to a modern educational institution that will develop and apply innovative solutions in library management and smart technologies. Besides the digitalization of the current stocks of the Moravian-Silesian Research Library, a wide range of documents and artefacts from other libraries, museums and galleries throughout the Region will also be digitalized and made available to the general public.
The “Black Cube” project is now awaiting the issue of a construction permit. The project team is also working to access additional funding from the EU’s Just Transition Fund. The relevant call for funding applications is likely to be announced in the autumn of this year, and the Moravian-Silesian Region will submit its application as soon as possible. Construction should begin in 2024, with completion scheduled for 2027.
The Moravian-Silesian Research Library currently occupies temporary premises in Ostrava’s New City Hall. It welcomes around 900 visitors every day, but its current premises are inadequate to meet its operational needs. The basement areas (where the majority of the library’s stocks are stored) are also too damp for this purpose. The storage capacity has already been exceeded, so some of the stocks have been temporarily moved to depositories at other locations.