The Ministry of Culture declared the Franke villa a cultural monument

Tišnov - The Ministry of Culture has once again declared the so-called Villa Franke in Tišnov, located in the Brno region, a cultural monument. This is the first case from a series of buildings that were on the list of monuments as early as the late 1980s. However, experts discovered last year that these records are invalid and that the process must therefore be repeated. A similar procedure is likely to await dozens of others, according to statements from the heritage protectors.

The problem arose at the turn of 1987 and 1988. Although the relevant commissions decided in time to declare the buildings as monuments, officials often entered them into the registers only in 1988, when the current heritage law was already in effect. Heritage protectors long believed that the legal flaw of this process was not such that the buildings were no longer monuments, but this view is no longer valid.

In practice, this means that if the owner now requests the removal of monument protection, the state must comply. "We currently have 27 cases concerning the cancellation of declarations due to the ministry of culture's decision on the invalidity of the original entry. Of this total, we have so far submitted a proposal to the Ministry of Culture for new declarations as cultural monuments in 20 cases, the Ministry of Culture has initiated proceedings for declaration as a cultural monument in four cases, and has declared one case," said Aleš Homola from the Brno office of the National Heritage Institute to ČTK.

The Tišnov villa is the first building to be re-declared as a monument. The villa was built for a brewer from nearby Předklášteří, Rudolf Japp, between 1898 and 1899. He built it for his Italian wife. According to some experts, it is a somewhat bizarre eclectic work by an unidentified architect who oscillated between Art Nouveau, Neo-Renaissance, and inspiration from antiquity.

Japp soon sold the villa for financial reasons, and the building went through several owners. Since the First Republic, it has been owned by the Franke family and hosted a guesthouse with a café. Artists and athletes such as Jiří Voskovec, Jan Werich, Vlasta Burian, and Gustav Frištenský visited. In the 1990s, the series "Četnické humoresky" was filmed there, and the famous American actress Sigourney Weaver, known from the film "Alien," also stayed there. She was filming at Pernštejn Castle at that time, which was a variation on the Snow White story.

The house was also home to regular guests of Brno fairs as well as actors and artists. "The house has a rich history, which was the reason we requested the re-declaration as a monument," Petra Frankeová told ČTK.