NGP wants to purchase land for a depot in Jinonice for 33 million CZK

Prague - The National Gallery Prague (NGP) wants to buy two plots of land in Jinonice from the capital city for 33 million crowns for the construction of a storage facility. These should complement the plot on which the gallery intends to build, but it has an unsuitable shape. The information about the purchase plan, which should be finalized by September, was heard by the government today according to the press department of Straka's Academy. The gallery's management has long discussed the need for a storage facility, which is also a condition for the reconstruction of the Trade Fair Palace, which partially serves as a storage facility.

According to the document presented to the government by Minister of Culture Lubomír Zaorálek (CSSD), the two plots should complement the one that the gallery already has available in Jinonice. "The mentioned plot has a limiting trapezoidal shape (it is essentially an incomplete triangle), which is significantly limiting for the construction of a storage building,” the submission report states. The plot cannot be fully utilized for construction according to the zoning plan. Therefore, the gallery wants to expand the plot. The National Gallery in Prague has consulted the possibility of acquiring other suitable plots with the Office for Representation of the State in Property Affairs, but they do not have other plots suitable for the construction of a storage facility.

The estimated value of the public contract is 32.95 million crowns excluding VAT, the contract must be concluded by September 20. The funds to purchase the plot will come from the ministry's program Care for National Cultural Heritage I.

Appointed director of NGP Anne-Marie Nedoma told journalists in December that NGP under her leadership continues the project of reconstructing the Trade Fair Palace, which was initiated by former NGP director Jiří Fajt. However, according to her, it will not begin before the gallery's storage facility in Jinonice is completed, which she estimates will take about six or seven years. The reconstructed Trade Fair Palace could then be ready in 15 years, according to her.

Prime Minister Andrej Babiš (YES) has repeatedly stated that the reconstruction of the functionalist building is among the government's priority investment projects, and funds for it are planned in the new investment program that the government is preparing. Fajt estimated that the new Trade Fair Palace could be completed in six years.

The National Gallery Prague has six buildings in the capital city with permanent exhibitions or shows, and it also organizes exhibitions in the Valdštejn Riding School, which belongs to the Senate. The gallery manages the largest collection of artworks in the Czech Republic. It is an institution with a tradition of more than two hundred years that collects, records, studies, exhibits, publishes, and mediates works of art from all visual arts fields from antiquity to the present.