The gallery is looking for a manufacturer for the Palach Monument on Alšovo Nábreží

Prague - The Gallery of the Capital City of Prague is looking for a manufacturer for the Palach monument on Alšovo nábřeží (Alš's Embankment). The price for the three steel parts is estimated to be six to ten million crowns, as CTK discovered from the public procurement bulletin. The monument should be completed this year, with the contract to be delivered by November. The author of the monument, which was in wooden form in the gardens of Prague Castle in the 1990s, is the American sculptor and architect of Czech origin John Hejduk (1929 to 2000).
    "The wish of John Hejduk's family was that the monument be created by James Williamson, who worked with the author on the design," said Marie Foltýnová, curator of public sculpture at the Gallery of the Capital City of Prague, to CTK earlier. However, Czech laws do not allow a public institution to award a contract to a single selected person, so it was necessary to announce a public procurement according to the project documentation that Williamson approved.
    The monument consists of two geometric sculptures, from a square pedestal flames emerge. The lighter one represents the figure of the son as a light bearer, and the darker one represents the suffering mother. In the 1990s, they were erected at the Castle under the names House of the Suicide and House of the Mother of the Suicide. They were inspired by a poem by contemporary American writer David Shapiro, which was placed on the pedestals of the provisional wooden sculptures.
    According to the information about the contract, all parts of the monument will be made of steel, the object House of the Mother in black and the House of the Son in stainless steel. Both will be 7.3 meters tall. The third component of the monument will be a steel commemorative plaque on a concrete base, on which there will be a laser-cut text by poet David Shapiro in Czech and English.
    Prague city councilors approved the construction of the monument two years ago in the summer. This May, they tasked the Gallery of the Capital City of Prague and transferred funds to its account. The location of the monument is related to the park modifications on Alš's Embankment.
    Student Jan Palach self-immolated on January 16, 1969, in protest against the Soviet occupation and against how quickly people resigned to any resistance against it. Palach's act is commemorated in Prague by a plaque in the paving of Wenceslas Square, another on the wall of the Faculty of Philosophy on Palach Square, and a grave in Olšany.