The Supreme Court has reopened the dispute over the lamps in the center of Olomouc after years

Olomouc - The Olomouc High Court today reopened a protracted dispute between the city hall and architect Jan Šépka regarding the replacement of lamps in the Upper Square in the historic center of Olomouc after several years. According to the court, the matter has not been resolved out of court, with both parties insisting on an appeal against the regional court's ruling. In 2016, the court stated that the city violated the rights of the authors by replacing the lamps and ordered it to pay 100,000 crowns, including an apology. However, according to the ruling, the city does not have to return the original lamps to the Upper Square. The case was postponed today by the High Court to November 21 due to a strike by court staff, which prevented them from familiarizing themselves with a newly delivered document.

The dispute concerns the replacement of Thorn lamps with UrbanStar fixtures; the city undertook this step in 2014 despite the reluctance of conservationists and the authors of the Upper Square reconstruction. "To this day, we do not know why they were removed from the square. The reason that they were in poor condition does not hold up due to photographic evidence. The lamps that are there today provide exactly the same amount of light as the original 'matches,' so there has been no increase in brightness. I would be interested to know how the city explains that it removed and scrapped public property in the form of 33 design lamps," said Šépka today to ČTK.

He argues that, according to the court expert, the author's work was damaged. "I want the square to return to a state that corresponds to our authorial parameters - either by installing the Thorn lamp; even though the lamp is no longer produced, a replica can be made, or there is an atypical lamp and a created prototype, which we have been negotiating with the city for several years," the architect added.

According to his advocate František Vyskočil, the previous negotiations have failed. He claims that these are personality rights protected by constitutional laws, thus requiring the city to restore the square to its original state. According to the legal representative of the city hall, Petr Konečný, this is a precedent case for the city. He stated that the previous negotiations were conducted with honest intentions, but were complicated by a number of circumstances including a change in city hall leadership. He also pointed out that the economic aspect is a fundamental problem. "It is unthinkable to return to old lamps from the 90s that do not comply with technical and design standards - even citizens pointed out their lack of brightness," noted the legal representative. He also pointed out that the second co-author of the work does not share a unified opinion with Šépka.

The dispute has been going on for eight years; the architect filed a lawsuit regarding copyright protection in July 2014, when the city was considering replacing the lamps. However, this was not welcomed by the conservationists or the authors of the Upper Square reconstruction. In 2014, the court issued a preliminary injunction regarding the appearance of the lighting and prohibited the replacement of the lamps until the dispute was resolved, but the city took advantage of a loophole in the proceedings and quickly replaced the Thorn lamps in September 2014.

According to Jan Šépka, the dispute is important even after so many years. "We may have unlearned to assess architecture as an artistic work that has some value. That's a shame," said Šépka. He added that valuing some kind of value is important not only for him as an author but also for the architectural community and for the citizens.