MK will again deal with the heritage protection of the train station in Havířov

Prague - The Ministry of Culture (MK) will re-examine the station in Havířov, which has repeatedly refused to declare it a cultural monument. It received a prompt to review the last decision of Minister Daniel Herman (KDU-ČSL). According to the association that submitted it, the minister decided in contradiction to the recommendation of the appeal commission. "With the new prompt for review (...), it will be handled in accordance with the administrative code," said Simona Cigánková, spokesperson for the ministry, to ČTK. Whether the MK will initiate the review is not clear yet.
    Last year, the MK decided that the station would not be a monument. The National Heritage Institute (NPÚ) filed an appeal against the decision. In February, Herman confirmed the previous decision of the MK's heritage department as a result of the appeal proceedings and did not declare the station as a monument.
    However, the appeal commission stated in a record, which ČTK has access to, that the decision challenged by the NPÚ is unlawful. According to the commission, the MK did not obtain key documents for its decision that would allow it to evaluate their actual content. The commission proposed to initiate a review procedure to examine the extent of the illegality of the challenged decision of the MK - that is, the one in which it refused to declare the station a cultural monument last October.
    "It is striking that the minister in his last decision does not mention the actions of the appeal commission at all and does not address its findings," says Martin Kadrman, vice president of the Association for the Protection and Development of Cultural Heritage of the Czech Republic (ASORKD). The association therefore submitted a prompt to the minister for a review procedure.
    "The Minister of Culture did not agree with the recommendation of the appeal commission and decided otherwise. The commission is merely an advisory body to the Minister of Culture. He is not bound by its recommendations, whether regarding the verdict or justification of the decision, and may, as has indeed happened repeatedly in the past, decide differently," said the spokesperson.
    The station in Havířov, built in the Brussels style, was to be demolished by Czech Railways, which planned to build a transport terminal in its place. However, at the end of last year, the city backed away from the terminal construction, which was a joint project of Czech Railways and Havířov. Thus, the station should not be demolished for now, even though it does not enjoy heritage protection.
    The MK has repeatedly decided about the building by architect Josef Hrejsemnou, which experts consider a unique example of architecture from the Brussels style period, always in contradiction to the opinions of experts. The Důl architektury association first submitted a proposal to the MK to declare the station a cultural monument in 2011 when Czech Railways presented the plan to demolish the building. The NPÚ recommended the declaration, but the MK refused to declare the station a monument in May 2012. The authors of the prompt submitted a proposal to the MK to initiate a review procedure. The then Minister Alena Hanáková halted the review in June 2013, already as the outgoing minister, and allowed for potential demolition of the building. Last year, the MK assessed a new proposal and again rejected it.