Closure of Czech Steel Company. Russia Turned to be not Crisis-proof

Closure of Czech steel company. The second largest Russian steel plant Evraz stopped producing steel at its subsidiary enterprise Evraz Vitkovice Steel, as due to the crisis the demand for the company’s production significantly decreased. The analysts warn that the Russian steel industry may suffer from recession soon. As Reuters informs, the work of Evraz Vitkovice Steel (the only steel sheets producer in Czech republic and the largest one in Europe) was frozen because of insufficient demand, with the purpose to cut the company’s costs. Czech Evraz also specializes on producing rolled steel, which is widely used for constructing automobiles, ships and bridges. While the process of steel production is stopped the rolling plant will be functioning. As the the representative of Vitkovice Steel Jaromir Krisica informed, the length of break in steel production depends on lots of factors, which are currently under the company management’s consideration. As Mr. Krisica informed, some employees of Vitkovice Steel were sent home, they will get 80% of their salaries.

Meanwhile other workers will be transferred to other plant departments or will perform certain maintenance work. According to the report of the World Steel Association (WSA), these days the European steel market experiences a huge downturn. The forecasts of the association show that in 2012 the demand for steel will fall by 5,6%, and in 2013 it will increase by only 2,4%, reaching the level of 148 mln tones. The analysts of WSA say that the level of steel consumption in Europe hasn’t grown within the recent time, at the same time the growth of economy in different European countries goes uneven. As the experts affirm, in Europe especially in its Southern part, the demand for steel is rather low. At the same time the level of demand is more dependant on the governments’ policies rather than on the companies themselves. This is a serious obstacle for making whatever forecasts especially regarding the situation on the world steel market. The real alarm at the international steel sector began in October, when the largest steel-casting plant ArcelorMittal stoped the work of its two furances in Floranzh, and the French government got 2 months for finding a customer for ArcelorMittal. According to the data from Interfax agency, the downturn at steel markets may negatively influence the Russian steel industry. Moreover, such negative Russian factors as a bad logistics, inflation and an eccessive level of supply can make the situation on the European steel market even worse. It should be noted that the Vitkovice steel mill is the main supplier of raw meterials for the Czech division of ArcelorMittal. Last year Vitkovice company sold 824 thousand tones of rolled products and 760 thousand tones of steel slabs.

Since the early 1990s, visitors to the sleepy town of Čelákovice, just a few kilometres from Prague, could have easily missed the concrete ruin of Villa Volman. Situated in a large natural park, the house had become more of a neglected, weather-battered, graffiti-covered squat than the luxury mansion of its heyday. But the building – one of the Czech modernist movement’s forgotten icons – has been returned to its pre-war glory after years of careful restoration work. Saved by enlightened local business group CZ Tech, the home of industrialist Josef Volman was originally built in 1939, designed by avant-garde Czech architects Karel Janů and Jiří Štursa. Prague-based Studio TaK won the competition for the renovation. ‘We had a huge appetite to be involved in a project of such significance,’ says chief architect Marek Tichý. His team’s detailed prep work, surveys, design and construction lasted almost 15 years. ‘The design of the villa is extraordinary.

It is a unique example of its kind in what was then Czechoslovakia,’ adds Tichý. The villa is also emblematic of the divide created by a debate in Czechoslovak modernist architecture. The country’s avant-garde Devětsil group, headed by influential theorist, artist and visionary Karel Teige, advocated architecture as science, a tool to build a modern society. The opposition argued for architecture’s more artistic qualities, treating it as a means to experiment with shapes and fine art influences. Villa Volman shows the clash between these two ideologies. Although Janů and Štursa were inclined to embrace architecture’s social call, this commission was primarily an artistic and compositional challenge. Volman, who had previously built a factory and housing for his employees in Čelákovice, bought a large piece of land and gave the architects an almost unlimited budget. The result was one of the finest (and most expensive) residences in the country’s interwar period, along with Mies van der Rohe’s Villa Tugendhat in Brno and Adolf Loos’ Müller house in Prague.

The architects conceived Villa Volman as a sculptural object. ‘It’s not just its functionalist architecture, but also the composition of the house and the context of the Elbe River and the beautiful floodplain forests nearby that need to be considered to understand the full breadth of this project,’ says Tichý. The building is a dynamic composition of intertwined volumes. Sharp lines alternate with curved walls and organic details; sleek, smooth surfaces contrast with traditional stone masonry. Bridges, walkways, balconies and staircases dominate the exterior and create a nautical character – a popular theme in the modernist architecture of the time. The interior is a rich mosaic. Aside from the built-in furniture and fixtures, If you have any kind of inquiries pertaining to where and the best ways to use tubes and hollow bars in the Czech Republic, you can call us at our own web page. designed by Janů and Štursa, the space was finished with contemporary pieces – some bought, some tailor-made by Volman’s daughter Ludmila, who looked after the interior decoration. ‘The villa was designed as a modern house, equipped, among other things, with central heating, high-tech mechanical infrastructure and, of course, luxurious materials, such as several types of marble, chrome details, stainless steel and exotic wood,’ says Tichý.