Minister wants more national cultural monuments

PRAGUE - Minister of Culture Vítězslav Jandák wants more movable monuments to have the status of a national cultural monument (NKP). Therefore, on Thursday, he will present a document to the government proposing to declare items such as the Vyšehrad Codex or the Hotel and TV transmitter Ještěd as monuments with the highest state protection.
"The purpose of the proposed legal amendment is to highlight the importance of monuments not only for our but also for European and world history of material culture, and to also address the existing imbalance between the number of immovable and movable national cultural monuments in the Czech Republic," said Robert Vašíček, a public relations officer at the Ministry of Culture, regarding the proposal to ČTK.
In addition to one immovable monument, the proposal includes nine movable ones - besides the Vyšehrad Codex, it includes other rare manuscripts such as the Passionary of Abbess Kunhuta and the Velislav Bible, a collection of 417 archaeological finds from the Great Moravian settlement in Mikulčice, a set of Gothic sculptures from the period of beautiful style in the Czech lands, a collection of bells and dulcimers from St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague, a collection of Baroque altar paintings by Karel Škréta and Petr Brandl, a unique predecessor of photography known as the Kynžvart Daguerreotype from 1839, and five Tatra automobiles.
However, the "imbalance" between the number of movable and immovable NKPs is not greatly offset; there are currently 196 immovable national cultural monuments, while according to the National Heritage Institute, there are five movable ones, including crown jewels.
The Liberec Region, where the structure is located, has been striving for the inclusion of Ještěd among national cultural monuments for several years. This is a prerequisite for the monument to be added to the UNESCO World Heritage List, which the region and heritage conservationists are also pursuing. According to heritage conservationists, the landmark of the region has a chance to become a national cultural monument also because the author of the mountain hotel Ještěd, Karel Hubáček, received the Perret Prize in 1969, awarded by the International Union of Architects; in 1998 it was registered as a cultural monument of the Czech Republic.