A Study Stay Center will be established at the castle in Český Krumlov

Czech Krumlov - The Czech Krumlov Castle area will see the establishment of a Study Stay Center by the summer of 2016. The clearing of a 20-year-abandoned building, which will be transformed into the center, has already begun in the first courtyard. The National Heritage Institute (NPÚ) has received 25.7 million crowns for the reconstruction from the so-called Norwegian funds. Work will fully commence in March next year and must be completed by July 2016, said the castle curator Pavel Slavko to ČTK today. Three domestic and three foreign universities will participate in the project.
    "The NPÚ Study Stay Center project involves the adaptation of the building, where there will be accommodation, three classrooms, one larger lecture hall, and a modest canteen," said the curator, who was the father of the idea to utilize the building. A team of experts worked on it for several years, and the project was developed based on the experiences of heritage specialists from work stays abroad and their ideas by a renowned Prague studio.
    The center will serve not only students but also researchers, musicians, historians, and even librarians and archivists. According to Slavko, the UNESCO site is becoming a commercial trap. Prices for accommodation or food are above standard and inaccessible even for the middle-class intelligentsia. The city lacks conditions for longer study stays.
    The building where the center will be established is from the 17th century and underwent significant reconstruction two centuries later. It housed office spaces, a stable, and granaries. Most recently, it served the police, and then it was abandoned for 20 years. The center is being built in a retro style with wood and painting, incorporating modern technologies, according to Slavko.
    The last significant investment in the Czech Krumlov Castle complex, which is visited by over 320,000 tourists annually, was the Castle Museum in 2011. NPÚ constructed it in one of the oldest and most valuable buildings with the help of a forty-million crown grant, also from the Norwegian funds. It now attracts tourists to the area even outside the main season. Visitors can view hundreds of valuable exhibits in 29 halls there.
    Next year, work will continue on the restoration of the Mountain Garden on the southern slopes above the Vltava River, where a Garden Museum will be created at the end. It could be accessible in the fall of next year. A museum of transport vehicles will be opened in the fifth courtyard already in the summer of 2015, the curator pointed out.