The building of the Ostrava-Vítkovice station was declared a monument

Ostrava - The railway station building of Ostrava-Vítkovice has been declared a cultural monument. This was reported today by the server Euro.cz based on information from the National Heritage Institute (NPÚ). According to the NPÚ, the decision of the Ministry of Culture regarding the heritage protection of the Vítkovice station took legal effect in April this year. The State Railway Administration plans to repair the dilapidated station building for 330 million crowns. In the future, a financial administration could be based there.

The Ministry of Culture wanted to include the Vítkovice station on the list of cultural monuments as early as 2008, according to the server. However, the then-owner of the building, the state railway carrier České dráhy, disagreed and filed an appeal against the decision. However, the Ministry did not uphold the railways' appeal, and the station thus officially became a monument this year.

The station is on the so-called Polanecká connector, which connects the Ostrava stations Svinov and Kunčice. "The station building of Ostrava-Vítkovice was created between 1963 and 1967 according to the design of architect Josef Danda. It is a valuable example of the Brussels style in Czech architecture of the 1960s," stated the NPÚ in connection with the declaration of the building as a cultural monument. According to heritage protectors, the station building is historically valuable also because no significant reconstruction has been carried out there in the past 50 years.

The station has been deteriorating for years. According to the Railway Administration, which currently owns the building, it is oversized for the needs of today’s railway. Therefore, according to the administration's plans, from December 2023, the headquarters of the General Financial Directorate (GFŘ) should be located in the station building. Work on preparing the project repair proposal has already begun. "If everything goes optimally, construction work is expected to start in the second half of 2021 and to be completed by October 2023 at the latest, considering the location of the GFŘ premises," said Marek Illiaš, spokesperson for the State Railway Administration, to ČTK this January.

"Throughout the preparation period, the project for the reconstruction of the Ostrava-Vítkovice station building was in a mode of preliminary heritage protection. The decision of the Ministry of Culture to declare it a cultural monument confirmed our process and did not affect the preparation of the construction in any way," said Radka Pistoriusová from the Railway Administration to the Euro.cz server.