The director of NPÚ in Pilsen wants to utilize the monasteries in Plasy and Kladruby

Plzeň - The new director of the Plzeň branch of the National Heritage Institute, Ludmila Drncová, wants to find uses for the large monastery complexes in Kladruby and Plasy and stabilize the situation at the workplace in both financial and personnel aspects. These are the main tasks, Drncová said today to ČTK, who was appointed on March 22. She has officially managed the Plzeň branch of the institute since April 1.
    Stabilization is related to a fundamental change that occurred at the NPÚ in January. On January 1, a detached workplace in Loket became a separate professional territorial workplace of the NPÚ. The Plzeň institution lost 30 percent of its professional staff. The budget was reduced by a third.
    "The two smaller ones always pay the price. The loss of staff is significant, and the work will drastically increase," Drncová said. The NPÚ in Plzeň, which has approximately 50 employees after the separation from Loket, will have to make significant efforts, according to her. This is also true concerning the budget, as it is related to the division, she added.
    Regarding monuments, the most important thing is to utilize the large monastery complexes in Kladruby and Plasy. Drncová intends to build on the previous management that pursued this goal. "If those complexes do not come to life, it's a bad thing," said the director. The potential use of the building in Kladruby has already been outlined. The monastery could host a theater.
    Due to the utilization of the historical complex in Plasy, Drncová was contacted on Friday with an interesting offer from representatives of Prague institutions. "The spaces could serve, among other things, the National Technical Museum, a craft school, or as a detached workplace of the agricultural university," Drncová stated. She wants to ensure the variability of the monastery's use.
    Money for the restoration of monuments can be obtained from structural funds. It is also necessary to use state funds effectively, she noted. The request from the Ministry of Culture, which wants to reduce the number of employees by three percent for the next year, is considered unimaginable. "We will have to defend our positions; we are not bureaucrats," the director added.
    Drncová graduated from the Faculty of Arts of the University of J.E. Purkyně in Brno. Since April 1985, she has been an employee of the specialized organization for state heritage care. She started as an independent art historian. In 1988, she became the lead art historian of the heritage care department, then the head of the restoration department, and subsequently the head of the research department.
    In 1999, she was a member of the ministerial team for the Movable Cultural Heritage Restoration Program. From 2001 to 2004, she worked in the Ministry of Culture's Commission for Restoration; in the section for artworks and artisanal works. She participated, for example, in the restoration of the Municipal Theater in Karlovy Vary, the state chateau Kynžvart, and the site of the former provostry with the Church of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary and the ambitus in Mariánská Týnice in northern Plzeň.