Under Klementine there will be a parking lot for 20 cars instead of a depot

Prague - Under Prague's Klementinum, garages for 20 cars for the employees of the National Library (NK), which is located in the building, are to be constructed. Costs will thus increase by hundreds of millions compared to the original plan, which was to build an underground repository for two million volumes of modern literature. Some architects oppose the construction of the parking lot. Today's Mladá fronta Dnes (MfD) reports on this.
    The original project for the book repository had already been approved by the city hall and conservationists, and the costs were estimated to be around one hundred million crowns. However, the director of the NK, Tomáš Böhm, has now come up with a new plan: "It is my vision of a new form of Klementinum. It will be more welcoming to people without bothering them with car traffic," he told the newspaper.
    Architects particularly dislike the planned entrance to the garages from Platnéřská street and the required tunneling for that purpose. They believe this will rudely disrupt the sensitively designed surroundings of Klementinum and may also compromise its structural integrity or the stability of nearby buildings. The building is, after all, located in a flood zone on unpredictable alluvial deposits.
    Experts contacted by MfD estimate that the costs for the tunneling would increase by one hundred to two hundred million crowns compared to the original plan. However, Böhm assures that it will fit into the original budget. According to him, it should be completed in about five years.
    "This is an unprecedented violation of a national historical monument. A tunnel under Klementinum for the convenience of library employees? A huge trench into the centuries-old Platnéřská street, which sensitively embraces Klementinum? I haven't heard a greater nonsense in a long time. If only those hundreds of millions of taxpayers' money were better spent on some of the dilapidated monuments," architect Zdeněk Lukeš told MfD.
    Böhm's predecessor, Pavel Hazuka, also opposed the proposal. He believes the garages are unnecessary; employees could easily commute by metro, which has a station nearby. "I have done it this way for years and see no reason to build an underground garage for hundreds of millions. And if they want to drive, they have nearly empty underground garages across the street at Palach Square," Hazuka said to the newspaper.