The Palach Memorial should be located on Alšovo nábřeží next year

Prague - A monument to Jan Palach should be erected next year on Alšovo nábřeží in Prague. The Gallery of the Capital City of Prague plans to announce a tender for its contractor by the end of the year. The monument, which stood in wooden form in the gardens of Prague Castle in the 1990s, is designed by American sculptor and architect of Czech descent John Hejduk (1929 to 2000). He dedicated his work, honoring Palach's sacrifice, to Prague.
    Student Jan Palach self-immolated on January 16, 1969, in protest against the Soviet occupation and against the speed with which people resigned themselves to any resistance.
    Prague city councilors approved the construction of the monument two years ago in the summer. In May of this year, they entrusted the task to the Gallery of the Capital City of Prague. The required six million crowns have already been transferred by Prague to the city gallery, stated city hall spokesperson Petra Hrubá to ČTK. The monument's location is linked to park adjustments on Alšovo nábřeží, which should begin later this year.
    "The family of John Hejduk wished for the monument to be created by James Williamson, who worked on the design with the author," said curator of public sculpture at the Gallery of the Capital City of Prague, Marie Foltýnová, to ČTK. However, Czech laws do not allow a public institution to award a contract to only one selected person, so an open tender will have to be carried out. It will be based on project documentation approved by Professor Williamson, she added. The gallery is also accounting for time reserves in case of appeals from participants in the tender, and it expects that construction of the monument could begin in the summer of next year.
    The monument consists of two approximately six-meter-high geometric sculptures, from a square pedestal flames emerge. The light represents the figure of the son-lightbearer, and the dark represents the suffering mother. In the 1990s, they were erected at the Castle under the names House of the Suicide and House of the Mother of the Suicide. They were inspired by a poem of contemporary American writer David Shapiro, which was placed on the pedestals of the provisional wooden sculptures.
    Palach's act is commemorated in Prague by a memorial plaque in the pavement of Wenceslas Square and another on the wall of the Faculty of Philosophy at Palach Square. Although John Hejduk dedicated his work to Prague more than two decades ago, a more significant monument to the awakening and unprecedented act of the Prague student will not be completed in the year when people remembered its 45th anniversary and will commemorate 25 years since the fall of the totalitarian regime.