The museum will announce the location of the SEFO construction next week

Olomouc - The Museum of Art plans to announce the definitive location for the establishment of the Central European Fine Arts Exhibition - SEFO in Olomouc next week. This will happen after the meeting between the museum director Ondřej Zatloukal and Minister of Culture Lubomír Zaorálek (ČSSD) on Friday, Zatloukal told ČTK today. The project has been in planning for more than ten years, and in 2008 it was confirmed with the signatures of representatives from the Visegrad Group countries. The construction has been delayed mainly due to land acquisition and funding. After failing to obtain European grants, the government approved 593 million crowns for this construction in January this year.

In September, during his visit to Olomouc, Zaorálek described the project as exceptionally significant. He left its design to the museum's responsibility and deemed the architectural competition, which his predecessor Antonín Staněk had requested, as a risk. Museum representatives previously stated that two options are currently in play: the present proposal by architect Jan Šépka for the gap in Denisova Street or utilizing spaces in the abandoned Hanácké barracks.

According to initial estimates, the decision was to be made by the end of October, and the final stance of the Ministry of Culture is still awaited. "This is a very complex problem that will have very serious consequences for us and for the Ministry of Culture. Therefore, we are approaching it with the utmost seriousness. On Friday, I have a meeting with the minister, and among other things, we will discuss the Central European Forum project. I expect that from this meeting we will formulate a certain statement that we would like to present in the following week," Zatloukal stated.

According to the museum director, both variants have their pros and cons. Šépka's completion in the gap proposed in 2009 would be a significant architectural achievement and would be connected to the old museum building. However, he is aware that striking architecture placed in the historic part of the city can divide society. In the magazine Muzeion published by the museum, Zatloukal appreciates the spatial possibilities at the barracks, which could develop the SEFO's concept more deeply into the past. However, he believes that the building is not architecturally as significant, is distant from the main museum structure, and is also much larger than the museum would utilize. "It is financially more demanding; a potential reconstruction may be a third more expensive," Zatloukal noted.

The new building is expected to offer exhibition spaces for artistic works from across Central Europe and the facilities necessary for the museum's operations. This primarily includes larger storage areas for the continually growing collections or a new library and study room. The new central storage facility is expected to accommodate up to 200,000 works of art; the museum currently owns 90,860 collection items with a market value of approximately two billion crowns.