<span>Na 160 lidí protestovalo proti demolici budov Transgasu</span> translates to <span>About 160 people protested against the demolition of the Transgas buildings</span>

Prague - About 160 people protested today at the Transgas buildings on Vinohradská Street in Prague against the planned demolition of the structures, which the owner wants to replace with new buildings. The protesters blamed Minister of Culture Daniel Herman (KDU-ČSL) for the situation. His ministry refused in November to declare a group of three buildings as a cultural monument. The protest was organized by the initiatives Prázdné domy, Architektura 489, Klub Za starou Prahu, Spolek za estetiku veřejného prostoru, and others.

"That gesture, that trick of Daniel Herman's is, and I have to say it this way, absolutely immoral," stated professor of art history at the AAAD Milena Bartlová. She responded to the developments surrounding the proceedings to declare the buildings as monuments. The Ministry of Culture rejected the buildings from the 1970s for monument status, Minister Herman began reviewing the decision of the preservationists in the spring and stated in the media that the buildings would likely become monuments. However, this review process was halted by Herman in November this year, and thus the buildings do not have monument protection. Bartlová and other speakers relate Herman's change of stance to the elections.

Speakers during their remarks also criticized the work of the National Heritage Institute and the heritage conservation department of the Prague magistrate. "Look at how systematically, without any interest, they have been discarding one building after another over the past x years, to the point where I would say it is almost intentional to erase the buildings from the 60s and 70s from Prague," said co-architect of the buildings Václav Aulický.

"We have a strong opponent against us. It is a wealthy investor with a big wallet, it is a very quality architect who is working on alternative solutions for this locality. It is, of course, also a part of the public that simply does not like this building, and unfortunately it is also the Ministry of Culture headed by Mr. Minister, who just a few weeks ago were some kind of assurance for us that we would be able to save the building, that the cultural monument would somehow be preserved for future generations," said interior designer of the Transgas buildings Jan Fišer.

According to Bartlová, there is a need to create a better system for the protection of modern architectural heritage, under which developers would clearly find out what can and cannot be done with each building. Proponents of protecting the buildings state that the work of the team Jindřich Malátek, Ivo Loos, Zdeněk Eisenreich, and Václav Aulický is one of the most prominent examples of brutalist architecture in the Czech Republic.

From the Transgas buildings, the procession went to Wenceslas Square to the site of the former Kozák house on Opletalova Street, which was demolished last August.

The owner of the Transgas building complex is the development group HB Reavis of Slovak billionaire Ivan Chrenko, which acquired it in 2014 from the company ČEZ. Instead of the existing buildings, they want to build a multifunctional complex of seven buildings according to the design of architect Jakub Cigler. According to preliminary estimates, the project could start construction in about a year, and completion could be expected at the beginning of 2021.

The complex of the former Gas Central Dispatch Transgas and the Ministry of Fuels and Energy stands on Vinohradská Street beneath the building of the Czechoslovak Radio. Three buildings were built between 1966 and 1976 in a brutalist style supplemented by various technical details.