The government declared the Brno crematorium a heritage site

Brno - The government today declared the Crematorium and Columbarium at the Central Cemetery in Brno a national cultural monument. According to Michal Tomášek, the director of the Funeral and Cemetery Services of the City of Brno, this is likely to extend the planned renovations of the complex.

"We have no problem with the declaration of the area as a monument; we have already been under scrutiny and reported renovations to the conservationists. I expect that repairs will now need to be planned further in advance," Tomášek stated.

In the area owned by the Funeral and Cemetery Services of the City of Brno, a reconstruction of the pavement in front of the crematorium is planned. It will be necessary to research archives to find out what the place originally looked like. The Funeral and Cemetery Services of the City of Brno are also planning the reconstruction of the sewage system or the cremation furnaces, of which there are three on the premises. According to Tomášek, some repairs could become more expensive, such as the refurbishment of some original elements. He also mentioned that the major reconstruction costing around 40 million crowns has already been completed. It ended in 2014, during which the parking lot was modified and retail and economic spaces were built.

The area dates back to the First Republic and is associated with architect Arnošt Wiesner. His goal was to sanctify, among other things, the cremation site. According to the website archiweb.cz, he achieved this idea by separating and enclosing the combustion area.

Last year, there were about 2500 ceremonies and 3500 cremations at the crematorium. Funeral companies from other cities also bring the deceased for cremation to Brno, and the number of cremations without a ceremony is increasing.

The complexity of repairs on monument-protected buildings is also confirmed by Marek Šamšula, the director of the Cemetery Administration of the City of Brno, who manages the ceremony hall in the same area. This hall is designated for classic ceremonies that are not cremations, and it was designed by Bohuslav Fuchs. "For every repair, we need the approval of the conservationists. They don't block anything, but the processing takes longer. Right now, we want to make a canopy to protect people from the rain, and the processing took five years," Šamšula stated.