The dance floor of the main hall of the night club Nasa has long needed to be torn out and replaced, say city officials, with an almost identical club.
As reported, Nasa is set to be demolished soon, to make way for a hotel. Strong opposition has arisen against the proposed change, with singer Páll Óskar leading the movement to save the night club. This has culminated in the creation of an online petition, which objects to the building of hotels in that area as causing detrimental shadow and crowding, and calls upon authorities to conserve Nasa.
A motion was filed with the The National Architectural Heritage Board asking for the committee to look into giving NASA conservation status. RÚV reports that Páll Hjaltason, the chairperson of the Reykjavík Planning Committee, was puzzled by the notion.
Páll contends that the dance floor of Nasa’s main hall is in need of being replaced. The architectural firm ASK intends to replace the floor, albeit half a story lower than the original floor. The dimensions of Nasa will remain more or less the same size, though, with the entrance and front area remaining as they are. There will also be an entrance onto the dance floor from the hotel that is proposed to be built beside Nasa. For this reason, the committee saw no reason to pass a measure calling for Nasa’s preservation, and Páll wondered allowed what the purpose of the petition was.
This still does not account for other complaints on the petition about the proposed hotel, such as that it will cast a large shadow over Austurvöllur, which is a popular spot to enjoy the sun in Reykjavík. “We should maybe just accept the fact that our downtown is small,” Páll Óskar has said of the plans. “We can be small. We don’t need giant buildings in the middle of downtown.” The petition has thus far gained over 10,000 signatures, having about half that a week ago.
Buy subscriptions, t-shirts and more from our shop right here!
