Demolition of the former spinning mill building of A. Landsberger company No. 1085 in Frýdek-Místek

The ongoing demolition of the building of the former spinning mill of A. Landsberger No. 1085 in Frýdek-Místek was not prevented by the long-term efforts of the National Heritage Institute (NPÚ) to declare it a cultural monument. The proposal for the declaration was submitted to the Ministry of Culture as early as 2002, based on the results of documentation of the textile industry conducted by the National Heritage Institute between 1999 and 2000. The ongoing demolition of the Landsberger spinning mill in Frýdek-Místek highlights the urgent need to find ways to change society's attitude towards industrial heritage. Industrial buildings and sites have often formed and continue to form the historical identity of our towns.

Archival photograph provided by the Beskydy Museum Frýdek-Místek

“Typologically, the Landsberger spinning mill represents a characteristic example of the textile factory solutions of its time, adapting architecturally to local specifics and simultaneously surpassing local scale with its monumentality. Its role in the urban development of the area around the railway station is also irreplaceable,” says heritage conservator Mgr. Michaela Ryšková of NPÚ, the author of the expert publication Cultural Heritage of the Textile Industry in Frýdek-Místek. Doc. Miloš Matěj, director of the Methodological Center for the Protection of Technical Monuments and Industrial Heritage of the National Heritage Institute, recalls how seriously NPÚ views the mapping, interest, and preservation of industrial buildings and complexes that form the historical identity of our cities: “As early as the 1990s, when we began to systematically explore industrial heritage, it became evident that for a segment of the public sensitive to the history of the place, the demolition of industrial objects represents a loss. Currently, many expert institutions and universities are addressing the significance and possibilities for the new use of industrial heritage.”

Nevertheless, in 2012, the Ministry of Culture decided not to declare the former spinning mill of A. Landsberger No. 1085 as a cultural monument. The refusal was also influenced by the negative attitudes of the Department of Urban Development and Building Regulations of the Magistrate of the City of Frýdek-Místek and the Department of Culture and Heritage Care of the Department of Urban Planning, Building Regulations, and Culture of the Moravian-Silesian Regional Office.
Given the dual responsibility for historical monuments in the Czech Republic, with the expert aspect entrusted to the National Heritage Institute but the executive function assigned to the relevant municipal offices of municipalities with extended powers (in this case, the Magistrate of the City of Frýdek-Místek) or regional offices, the options for the National Heritage Institute are limited. It seems that the interest and support from the very departments of heritage care within urban and regional authorities will be a crucial factor in the preservation of historical objects in similar cases.
In this context, the Ostrava territorial expert workplace of NPÚ states that the current situation regarding the Frýdek-Místek group of textile mills should primarily be perceived as a failure of specific public administration workers, who marginalized the value of these objects contrary to professional opinions, thus opening the way to widespread demolitions in the broader historical core of the city.

In the coming days, representatives from the Ministry of Culture will visit Frýdek-Místek to respond to the appeal of the mayor, who, along with the association Vize FM, initiated a new administrative procedure. The maximum possible level of protection for other historical industrial objects in the same location and the immediate halt of the ongoing demolition of the spinning mill building would help preserve significant elements that form the historical identity of the city of Frýdek-Místek.

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