CHYBÍK + KRIŠTOF Completes 5,650-Seat Municipal Arena in Jihlava

CHYBÍK + KRIŠTOF has completed a 5,650-seat sports and culture venue in the historic centre of Jihlava, Czech Republic, finished in a distinctive red cladding that the architects position as a new civic marker for the city.

The Jihlava Municipal Arena spans 25,000 m² and opened in 2025. The City of Jihlava commissioned the project through a design competition, a procurement route that gave the winning practice room to work across every scale of the building — from its integration with the cityscape down to a custom typeface designed for the venue.

What does the arena deliver for the city?

The building serves two programmes at once. It is the new home of HC Dukla Jihlava, the local ice hockey club, and simultaneously a cultural and civic hub for residents. That dual brief shaped the design decisions the practice describes in its text.

According to the architects, the project "demonstrates expressive yet sensitive design across multiple scales – from its careful integration with the cityscape and iconic façade, to arena seats designed for acoustic treatment, and a custom typeface for the venue."

For practitioners, three details stand out in that list:

• Acoustic seating. The arena seats themselves carry acoustic treatment, folding performance sound control into a component normally specified only for sightlines and comfort. Teams designing hybrid sports-and-culture venues will note the move: it removes a layer of added acoustic paneling from the interior budget.
• An iconic façade. The red envelope the architects describe sets the venue apart as a recognisable object within the Jihlava cityscape, rather than a neutral shed on the urban edge.
• A custom typeface. CHYBÍK + KRIŠTOF designed lettering specific to the venue, extending the commission from architecture into full graphic identity — an approach more practices are pursuing as clients seek unified brand experiences from single contracts.

Who made it, and who photographed it?

CHYBÍK + KRIŠTOF led the design. The photography comes from Laurian Ghinitoiu, Fabrice Fouillet, Alex Shoots Buildings and Pavel Bartak — a roster that signals the practice's international reach in publishing the work.

The competition route matters here. Cities that procure civic venues through open competitions, as Jihlava did, hand architects a broader mandate than a standard negotiated brief. CHYBÍK + KRIŠTOF used that mandate to control the seating, the façade, the urban fit and the typeface — a level of authorship rarely achievable under conventional delivery models.

What does the project change for hybrid venues?

The Jihlava Municipal Arena joins a growing set of mid-size European venues — in the 5,000-to-6,000-seat band — that refuse the single-programme arena typology. HC Dukla Jihlava gets a home; the city gets a hall sized for cultural events the club's schedule leaves open.

The building's success as a civic hub will test whether a 5,650-seat capacity, calibrated for ice hockey, can also fill consistently as a cultural venue in a city of Jihlava's size — the question every dual-use arena commission now has to answer.