The Ministry of Culture has suspended the review for the reconstruction of the Radost house

Prague – The Ministry of Culture has halted the review process regarding the planned reconstruction of the former trade union house in Prague's Žižkov district into rental apartments. The review was initiated earlier at the request of the National Heritage Institute (NPÚ), which disagreed with the positive opinion of the heritage conservationists of the Prague City Hall. However, the Ministry found no errors in it, so the currently suspended permitting process can continue. This information was reported today by the SeznamZprávy server. The heritage-protected building was long known as the headquarters of the trade unions, and today its owners call it Radost.

According to the server, the building on Winston Churchill Square is owned by the owners of the bathroom group Siko, who plan to convert it for 1.5 billion crowns into up to 650 rental apartments. The city hall's heritage conservationists, whose opinions are crucial for building permits, previously approved the reconstruction. However, the state NPÚ was strongly opposed, turning to the Ministry of Culture. State heritage officials were particularly displeased with the plan for a new construction in the areas of the current enclosed courtyards.

The Ministry of Culture found no deficiencies in the evaluation of the city hall heritage officials. "The Ministry of Culture found no legal defects that could justify a change or cancellation of the binding opinion in the review process," quoted the server its current resolution. Andrea Holasová from the NPÚ stated that the current plan would affect the cultural heritage values of the building, according to the opinion of the institute's conservationists and other experts. The server also reported that the NPÚ has requested a tightening of the protection of the building from a cultural monument to a national cultural monument, and it is not yet clear how that request turned out.

Tomáš Kašpar, who is in charge of the reconstruction project, wrote to the server that the criticized modifications will concern currently inaccessible courtyards and the technical background of the building, and the owners plan to remove the current unsightly wall around the building and make it accessible to the public. He welcomed the Ministry's decision. "Opening the building to the public, which everyone currently bypasses, and offering a cultural and social center in this iconic place to revitalize the entire area is the right and only possible path," he stated.

Last year, around thirty experts and representatives of the academic community protested against the reconstruction, as did the Club for Old Prague. The building, designed by architects Josef Havlíček and Karel Honzík, received international acclaim upon its completion in 1934, which, according to advocates of preserving the structure, no other modern Czech building has achieved. In 1958, it was declared a cultural monument.