The 2008 competition for the design of the ICC was won by the Warsaw-based studio JEMS Architects. This was their first project in Silesia, and it was not an easy one: the architects remember the challenge of designing the structure which was to stand next to one of the most iconic works of Polish architecture – the Saucer, which Jerzy Szczepanik-Dzikowski from JEMS discussed in the pages of the portal Katowice24.info:
It served as a reference and competing with it would have been improper. Powerful architectural forms reject each other when they stand side by side.
The competition required the new facility to both respect the modernist character of the neighborhood, and to take into account the historical route linking the site with the Bogucice district situated to the north-east.
The general idea of the project was to create a complex which would not only provide functional and utilitarian solutions, but would also respect the social fabric of the city. The edifice, with its simple, distinctive and explicit form, is integrated into the public space by providing links along the functionally important axis connecting Honour Square in front of the Saucer hall (also the most important transport hub in Katowice) with the oldest historical part of the city named Bogucice.
– says the centre's website
JEMS Architects proposed the construction of a simple cube-shaped building, divided in two by an irregular gap. Its layout recreates the course of the old road to Bogucice, and its interior serves as a public space. The sloping walls, roof and ground of the passage have been covered with grass, turning its undulating surface and steps into a comfortable seating place, perfect for meetings, leisure, and recreation. Such a solution, whereby a building loses part of its cubic capacity in favour of a recreational area, is not typical of Polish architecture. The authors have called it a ‘green valley’.