Norwegian money for the Jurkovič villa in Brno

It seems that Brno's Jurkovič Villa could indeed undergo a major reconstruction in the near future. The Moravian Gallery in Brno has been the owner and administrator of the famous monument to Dušan Jurkovič's activities in Brno since September 2006. This July, the MG received an official statement from the Monitoring Committee of the Ministry of Finance of the Czech Republic, recommending the project titled The Center of Dušan Samo Jurkovič in Brno as one of the ten to be supported by its Norwegian counterparts from the so-called Norwegian Funds. This is a significant success, as Ludmila Lefnerová from the Ministry of Finance of the Czech Republic stated for ČT 1 on July 19, 2008, that past applications approved by the Czech Republic were met with a ninety percent success rate.
In the past few weeks, authorized workers have been working intensively on incorporating the committee's comments and creating the English version. The final version of the grant application was submitted on August 15, 2008. Now the Office of Financial Mechanisms based in Brussels will comment on the submitted materials.

"Establishing the Center of Dušan Samo Jurkovič in the architect's own villa in Brno is one of the conceptual priorities of the Moravian Gallery in Brno. We are now at a stage where support for this project from the so-called Norwegian Funds seems to be within reach. Access to money from this program would ensure especially the effective realization of our intention in a relatively short time. Given that the preparation of the project and the application approval process is rather complicated, I want to thank all the gallery staff for their dedication and ask for a bit more patience. To the public, I can promise that we are doing everything possible to ensure that the villa is reconstructed and accessible in every case," says the director of the Moravian Gallery in Brno, Marek Pokorný.
The term "Norwegian Funds" is sometimes used imprecisely in the press. They are not resources from the European Union; rather, they pertain to the Financial Mechanisms of the EEA and Norway (see www.eeagrants.cz). The EEA (European Economic Area) is not the same as the EU. It involves the so-called EFTA (European Free Trade Association) countries, which include the Nordic states that have not joined the EU, namely Norway and Iceland. Currently, the Moravian Gallery in Brno is enrolled in the 3rd call for grant applications from the EEA/Norway Financial Mechanisms (the so-called Norwegian Funds), Preservation of European Cultural Heritage - one of the priority areas for which grants are intended.
In case of a positive statement, the preparatory phases of the reconstruction could begin in the spring of next year. The villa itself, along with the research center and permanent exhibition, could then be made accessible to the public by the end of 2010.