National Heritage Institute starts to look at buildings from 1950s onward
Prague, April 20 (ČTK) — The new commission for cultural heritage protection, an adviser to the Czech National Heritage Institute (NPÚ) director, has recommended that the state start protecting relatively young works of architecture from the second half of the 20th century, Mladá fronta Dnes (MfD) has written.
The listing of “young” buildings as protected monuments would be a breakthrough change in the state's approach to heritage conservation, the daily writes.
“Unlike the architecture of the interwar Czechoslovakia, the post-war architecture has been omitted by protection programs so far, also because its valuable pieces are more difficult to distinguish. As a result, valuable and quality buildings from a recent past may be threatened or even pulled down, like the Ještěd department store in Liberec, North Bohemia,” NPÚ director Naďa Goryczková told MfD.
Experts, for example, propose that the cultural heritage status be granted to the New Stage (Nová scéna), a modern part of the National Theater in Prague, with its exterior made of glass blocks, the central staircase, unique auditorium and its location next to the historical neo-Renaissance theater building, MfD writes.
Most people consider the New Stage, built 1983, a controversial work of architecture.