Shipping Containers Take The High Ground In the Czech Countryside

Repurposed shipping containers and architecture have had a relationship since the 1980’s, the structures often used residentially or in the workplace, and almost aways in a contemporary context. Until recently. On a hilltop in central Czech Republic, home to the 16th-century Litomyšl Castle and other examples of Renaissance architecture, is the Lookout Above Litomyšl, an industrial, spare, crosslike composition of two discarded Cor-Ten shipping containers by Atelier-R.

The project is part of Destinations of Journeys, an initiative by Litomyšl officials to inspire residents to take advantage of area hiking trails. Atelier-R founder Miroslav Pospíšil’s selection of the 45-foot-long containers adhered to budget constraints while also addressing ecology and consumption. “They make people consider the influence of globalization, which simplifies things at the cost of uniqueness,” he says about the two volumes, which maintained their original surface condition, including the logo for the brand of coffee they carried, “and the way goods on which we depend are transported.”

These are unique, however. Pospíšil, colleague Martin Karlík, and their team sliced off a 5-foot section of the horizontally oriented container and left it open to the elements for an expansive, immersive viewpoint. Not wasting anything, that section was then added to the top of the vertical container, making its observation platform, reached by a new steel staircase inside, 50 feet high and its views unobstructed. Then, after each was stabilized in a reinforced-concrete foundation, the tower also grounded by a massive stepped slab, the containers were connected and protected by Mikado, Czech sculptor Jan Dostál’s steel-pole artwork that functions as a lightning conductor.