The ministry is deciding whether Melichar's villa in Brandýs will be a cultural monument.

Brandýs nad Labem-Stará Boleslav - The Ministry of Culture is conducting proceedings to declare the grounds of the Melichar Villa in Brandýs nad Labem-Stará Boleslav as a cultural monument. The property is owned by the Central Bohemian Region, which has facilities for an emergency medical service dispatching station on the premises. The proposal for the declaration was submitted by the city through the relevant heritage protection authority. The Ministry is currently gathering documentation for its decision, said Ivana Awwadová from the ministry's press department to ČTK.

"The Ministry of Culture is currently conducting proceedings to declare the Melichar Villa complex, No. 370 in the cadastral area of Brandýs nad Labem, as a cultural monument, based on a proposal from the state heritage protection section of the City of Brandýs nad Labem-Stará Boleslav from this spring. Documentation for a decision is now being gathered," Awwadová stated. According to her, it is currently unclear when a decision might be made.

According to Markéta Chumlenová, an official in the heritage protection section of the Brandýs nad Labem-Stará Boleslav municipal office, this is a valuable building preserved both externally and internally. "Examples of preserved interior elements include wallpapers, original heating, paneling, doors, windows, and parts of ceilings with decorative stucco and woodcarving," Chumlenová said. According to her, the proposal for declaration as a cultural monument also includes the nearest park and the land on which a building from the 1970s is located. "The villa is not only associated with the personality of František Melichar, but it also has significance in terms of construction and architecture," Chumlenová added.

The Central Bohemian Region had wanted to build a new station due to unsatisfactory conditions of the existing EMS facility on the premises. However, it later agreed with the city to explore other solutions. "The declaration of a cultural monument certainly restricts the possibility of making potential structural modifications and obtaining the necessary building permits. Regardless of the decision by the Ministry of Culture, we will seek another location that meets the conditions for establishing a new dispatching station for the Central Bohemian ambulance service," said the region's spokesperson David Šíma in a response to ČTK today.

The mayor of the conurbation, Petr Soukup (Our Twin Town), had previously stated that one of the options in negotiations with the region is to transfer the property to the city. The villa, where one of the most significant personalities of the city lived, deserves a certain level of protection, according to him. "I would not deny future development potential for the adjacent land. There is definitely potential for secondary or vocational education, and I can also envision other necessary projects here. If the status of a cultural monument were to apply to the entire area, we could complicate this option unpleasantly, or even completely close it off," Soukup stated.

The neo-Renaissance villa with functionalist elements was built in 1902 by the Brandýs entrepreneur and owner of an agricultural machinery factory František Melichar. It was designed by the Prague architect Václav Roštlapil, who was also behind the design of the Straka Academy, among other projects. Until last year, the building was rented by a consortium school and is currently unused.