Ústí nad Labem councilors will meet on Friday regarding the demolition of the Schicht factory building

Ústí nad Labem - In a part of the historically valuable administration building of the Schicht factories in Ústí nad Labem, which is now part of the Setuza in Ústí, preparations for demolition have begun. For this reason, the Ústí city councilors will hold an extraordinary meeting on Friday. Historian, senator, and opposition councilor Martin Krsek (FOR Ústí) proposed that the city purchase the administration building and repair it with the help of a subsidy. The deputy for property, Věra Nechybová (ind.), told ČTK that the city is negotiating the next steps with the Ministry of Culture.

The demolition is being addressed by the building authority, which, according to Nechybová, has not informed the city about the planned procedure. "The demolition permit for a building that is very devastated, stripped, and in poor technical condition pertains, however, to its lower part. The way to save the more valuable upper part of the building is up to the owner," the deputy stated. She mentioned that although the costs for a potential reconstruction of the building are too high for the city, the management is still looking for solutions to save it. "We sent a letter to the Minister of Culture proposing potential utilization and urging him to join the effort to save the building through state and possibly European funds," Nechybová added. According to her, a museum of the industrial revolution in North Bohemia could possibly be established in the building.

"That building is a monument to the golden era of Ústí nad Labem, when conscientious entrepreneurs were building their empires here. The Schicht factories were the largest drug and food company in Europe, and when in 1929 the owners co-founded Unilever, the headquarters for Central and Eastern Europe was right here," Krsek explained the history of the site. "I thought we had left behind this primitive era, when we only demolish, in Ústí. This is barbarism," he added.

Former Ústí mayors Petr Gandalovič and Jan Kubata also reached out to the city management with a letter demanding maximum effort to preserve the building from the current mayor.

The Schicht factories in Ústí nad Labem were the largest of their kind in Europe at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. After World War II, Schicht's property was nationalized in Czechoslovakia, but the founder's name remained in the company's title until 1951. The Schicht companies later became the national enterprise Severočeské tukové závody, today's Setuza.