From the 25 newly declared monuments, half are modern buildings

Prague - A total of 25 objects or items became cultural monuments in the third quarter of this year. Among them are five villas and another seven modern buildings, such as a dam with a power plant and the administrative building of a chemical plant. Today, Jana Tichá, spokesperson for the National Heritage Institute (NPÚ), informed ČTK about this. According to her, this indicates a growing interest in modern architecture as a topic of heritage care.
However, this is not the case for all instances that the Ministry of Culture assesses and proclaims as cultural monuments at the proposal of any individual or legal entity. Recently, for example, it repeatedly refused to declare the Havířov railway station a cultural monument, which experts say is a unique example of Brussels-style architecture. The station is at risk of demolition due to the lack of heritage protection.
Of the 25 newly declared buildings, five are villas, meaning structures that wealthier classes acquired for family housing. In Czech lands, they became popular in the second half of the 19th century, when they were built in then-popular historicizing architectural styles.
The Zbraslav villa, known as Storch's, was constructed in 1892 and 1893 for lawyer and university professor František Storch. Its architecture combines influences of historicism and Art Nouveau. From the 1920s comes a villa in Jablonec nad Nisou inspired by rural housing and the architecture of mountain tourist chalets, as well as a very different house from Liberec-Kristiánov, whose architecture is described as baroque modernism with reflections of contemporary neoclassicism. The popularity of historicizing styles continued; the neo-baroque palace villa declared a monument was built in Ústí nad Labem - Střekov only in the 1930s.
In 1910, a fire station was built on Svobody Street in Mikulov, a technical building with a prism tower. A little later, the dam and hydroelectric power plant in Liberec-Rudolfov were completed. Experts describe the administrative building of the Association for Chemical and Metallurgical Production in Ústí nad Labem from the 1930s as an example of expressionist architecture. The Společenský dům hotel in Otrokovice, opened in 1936, and the savings bank in Soběslav from 1938 are described as quality functionalist architecture.
As of today, 40,317 immovable monuments and 296 national cultural monuments are recorded in the Central Register of Cultural Monuments. The list of movable monuments is not publicly accessible.
The newly established Methodical Center for Modern Architecture based in the Stiassni villa in Brno-Pisárky will focus on the study of modern architecture. The architecture of the 20th century was long neglected by state heritage care.