The Heritage Institute established an award for owners of cultural monuments

Prague - The National Heritage Institute (NPÚ) will award a new prize. It will be called Patrimonium pro futuro (Heritage for the Future) and is intended for owners of cultural monuments and others who are committed to the preservation of cultural heritage. A total of 28 candidates nominated by NPÚ's regional offices are in the running for the award. The competition has categories for monument restoration, discovery or find of the year, exhibition or publication, and cultural heritage rescue. The award will be presented in September on the occasion of European Heritage Days.
    "We would like to acknowledge in this way all those who perceive monuments and their cultural potential as an undeniable value, understand the significance of cultural heritage for our identity and living environment, and approach its preservation responsibly," says NPÚ Director Naďa Goryczková.
    Nominations for the national round of the award were closed by the institute in May. For each region, NPÚ specialists, who guarantee heritage care in their respective areas, could select a maximum of two representatives for each award category. Among the 28 candidates across all categories, nominations for sacred buildings predominate. The second most represented group includes residential buildings - castles, ruins (such as Nový hrad near Kunratice, Starý Světlov in Kroměříž region, Brandýs nad Orlicí), chateaux (Litomyšl, Trpisty), as well as residential homes (e.g., Karlova half of the villa of the Čapek brothers competes with a late medieval village homestead in Žitovlice and a water mill in the municipality of Rybníky in the Znojmo region).
    However, less common types of monuments are also represented - in the discovery of the year category, the system of historical wooden sluices of the Jordán pond in Tábor is nominated, and in the presentation of values category, the exhibition of Opava city walls.
    The winners of the individual categories will be decided in June by a panel of evaluators composed of members of NPÚ's scientific council, ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites), and other institutions.