The staircase from Rajniš will lead to the leaning tower of the Ústí church

Ústí nad Labem - A staircase in a newly built wooden structure will lead to the leaning tower of the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Ústí nad Labem. It was designed by a team led by architect Martin Rajniš. The Ústí Community Foundation, which is sponsoring the project, will seek funds from donors for the construction and accessibility of the most leaning tower in the Czech Republic.

The prism-shaped wooden structure will replace the original entrance to the tower, which was destroyed during the bombing of the city at the end of World War II. At that time, the tower also tilted more than two meters from the vertical in its sixty-meter height. "The extension is light and simple, as if transparent, which pretends nothing. Inside it hides two spiral staircases, one of which will take tourists up and the other back down to the ground," described Rajniš during the project's presentation today.

Heritage conservationists and the owner, who is the Roman Catholic Church, agreed to the construction of the modern extension, which will be twelve meters high. "I am pleased with the great interest in the church, especially here in northern Bohemia. It is a cultural interest in one of the most beautiful and significant monuments we have here," said Miroslav Šimáček, the archdeacon of the Ústí Roman Catholic parish, which will celebrate its 700th anniversary in two years. "It would be nice to connect the anniversary with the accessibility of the tower," he stated.

The debate among experts is now focused on connecting the outer extension to the tower itself, which leads up to the bell ringer’s apartment. The current awkward ascent is not suitable for the public. "We anticipate that people will enjoy not only the ascent via the modern extension and the interior of the tower but we will utilize the space for exhibitions about the bombing or discussing ecclesiastical themes during various holidays," stated the foundation's director Tomáš Krejčí.

The costs for the preparatory works, which included demanding geodetic measurements of the structure, have so far amounted to 230,000 crowns. "Another 200,000 crowns will still be needed for preparation. The construction and accessibility of the tower is estimated to cost three to four million crowns," Krejčí noted. "Our goal from the beginning was to obtain resources from a wide spectrum of donors. We believe that in our historically uprooted region, this could be a way to strengthen solidarity among people and build a relationship to the place," Krejčí said.

The public fundraiser could take the form of a symbolic sale of individual steps of the staircase. Interested parties could thus own a specific step to the tower. According to Krejčí, there will be between 150 to 180 steps leading up and the same number leading down.

The church, the foundation, and historians expect that the accessibility of the tower could arouse tourists' interest in the Gothic church itself, which had the involvement of many significant personalities, such as architect Josef Mocker, the author of the reconstruction of Karlštejn, or constructor Bedřich Hacar, who designed the reconstruction of the damaged Emmaus Monastery in Prague.