Hundreds of people demonstrated against the construction near the Benedictine Monastery

Prague - Today, opponents of the controversial building planned near the Anežský Monastery protested on the sidewalk in front of the Prague 1 City District Office. According to the police, over 500 people gathered at the event organized by the Citizens' Monitoring Association and the Association for the Protection and Development of Cultural Heritage of the Czech Republic (ASORKD). The organizers stated that approximately 1200 opponents of the building, referred to as 'marshmallow', supported the protest petition online.
Some of the attendees arrived with pink and gray boxes on their heads, meant to remind of one of the earlier appearances of the proposed façade resembling marshmallow candies. The representatives of the Green Party, led by the Deputy Mayor Matěj Stropnický, expressed their sympathy to the activists. Prague's Councilor for Culture Jan Wolf (KDU-ČSL) also appeared at the meeting. "This is another inherited problem voted for in 2008, unfortunately under the obsequiousness of the chief heritage caretaker Jan Kněžínek. The newly constructed building positively assessed in 2008 has a completely different appearance than the new construction currently being processed," he stated during Tuesday's interpellations at the city council meeting.
The protesters are concerned that developers want to build a residential building with six above-ground floors, a flat roof, and underground garages next to a monument from the first half of the 13th century in the Prague Monument Reserve in the Old Town. "We are preparing to submit a proposal to the control committee of the city council and Prague 1 to review the contract and the entire process of how the requirements of the National Heritage Institute and the Ministry of Culture have vanished from the developer's requests," said Vítězslav Praks, a representative of Citizens' Monitoring, to ČTK. He emphasized that the protesters want nothing else but what the Ministry of Culture and the National Heritage Institute had requested back in 2010.
The investor is the company Praga Progetti e Investment of Italian architect Francesca Augusta Razetti. He is only missing the building permit, which he applied for from Prague 1 last December. The organizers of the event point out that the investor does not own most of the land at all but has a future purchase agreement with the Prague city council for the sale of the land by the city. According to this agreement, Prague is to sell the land to the investor as soon as the construction is completed. Altogether, the buyer is supposed to pay about 28 million crowns.
"There is currently a building procedure underway at the city district's construction department, more precisely the settlement of objections submitted by the participants of the procedure. It is being investigated whether the documents are in order," said Veronika Blažková, the spokesperson for Prague 1.
The secretary of the Prague 1 city district office, František Dvořák, promised the protesters today that he would look into the entire matter.