<div>The house on Wenceslas Square is not a monument, it can be renovated.</div>

Prague - The Ministry of Culture (MK) decided that the building at the corner of Wenceslas Square and Opletalova Street will not be declared a cultural monument. Jan Vondryska from the ministry confirmed this to ČTK. The owner, who plans to demolish the building and construct a new one in its place, can therefore apply for demolition. When the investor's intention regarding the building was published last year, it met with significant disapproval from some heritage conservation experts, and protests were held against the project.
"Flow East welcomes the decision of the Ministry of Culture, which recognizes the rule of law over satisfying the voices of lobbying groups opposed to changes," said the Chairman of the Board of Flow East, James Woolf. The new building, for which the name Flower House is used, is said to meet the demands of modern life, is energy-efficient, and offers "increasingly necessary class A office spaces in Prague 1" and retail spaces. According to Woolf, the project will bring new jobs and investments of over 50 million euros (approximately 1.2 billion crowns).
The owner could have planned the construction of the new building as early as last year. The heritage department of the city allowed demolition within the heritage reservation with its decision. Although conservationists from the MK deemed its stance unlawful and canceled it six months later, it was too late because such action can only be taken within two months.
The appeals commission of the MK therefore recommended that the decision of the ministry's conservationists be revoked, since the owner of the building had already counted on the city's decision for six months, and its cancellation by the ministry could allegedly jeopardize his investment. The then-Minister of Culture Jiří Besser (TOP 09 and STAN) confirmed the commission's stance.
This year, the MK received two proposals to declare the building a monument. Based on the first one, officials did not initiate the relevant proceedings; in April, they began to deal with the proposal again and initiated proceedings. The decision that the building is not a monument became legally valid on October 1.
The MK states that "the inconspicuous quality of the building contributes to the values of the Prague heritage reservation, co-creating a cultivated environment for architecturally and urbanistically exceptional buildings." If buildings of average quality are viewed as superfluous, which can make way for commercial new constructions at any time, it may happen that in the space with the highest level of heritage protection in the Czech Republic, only individual solitary cultural monuments will remain amidst new constructions. "The loss of the historical character, which especially creates the heritage reservation, would be a consequence," says the ministry.
However, referring to previous positions of conservationists from several instances, it does not believe that "the consequences of significant legal defects (...) would be reasonable to heal by overvaluing the qualities of the building in question". As the ministry states in similar cases, the purpose of declaring something a monument is to preserve the proven significant heritage values, not to provide protective measures for objects against demolition.
Experts protested against the demolition of the building, pointing out that the Minister of Culture should defend rather the interests of the state in heritage conservation than the interests of a private investor in his decision. The known form of the planned new building was also criticized last year by former president Václav Havel.
According to the city's decision, the owner can demolish the corner building, the courtyard addition of the Jalta hotel, and the remains of the former Akciová printing house, of which only part of the façade remains. The previous owner of the printing house demolished it, then applied for the cancellation of its heritage protection, and the Ministry of Culture complied, since by then there was nothing left to protect. Only the land remained protected, and nothing now prevents the demolition of the remaining façade.