Švácha submitted a proposal to declare Máj a monument

PRAGUE - Architectural historian Rostislav Švácha submitted a proposal to the Ministry of Culture on Monday to declare the Prague department store built as Máj, now known as Tesco after its current owner, as a cultural monument. "It undoubtedly belongs to the most significant examples of Czech architecture of the 1970s. It is a building of extraordinary historical significance. Therefore, it deserves the status of a cultural monument," Švácha said to ČTK.
The reason for his action was also a recent media discussion about the alleged intention of the owner to demolish the building and construct a new object on the site. The owner later moderated his claims and is now only talking about renovation.
More generally, however, Švácha and other experts aim for greater attention to be paid to modern architecture monuments. While historians have public support for older buildings, structures from the last 50 years are not perceived as monuments by people, even though they are often unique objects.
Insufficient protection of modern architecture allows for its disappearance and intentional destruction. Tesco also owns another building from the second half of the 20th century, where it wants to build. In the case of Liberec and the local department store Ještěd, however, this intention will likely fail, as the ministry refused to declare it as a monument. Some experts argue, however, that it has its place in the history of architecture.
The Ministry of Culture proclaims objects or items as cultural monuments, while the government proclaims national cultural monuments. Currently, there is speculation that the agenda would be transferred from the ministry to the National Heritage Institute (NPÚ). The new director of NPÚ, Tomáš Hájek, expressed the view that the Czech Republic has too many monuments and that there should be more differentiation between what to protect and what not to protect.
His critics argue that Hájek is influenced by architectural lobbyists; architects would benefit from a reduction in the scope of monument protection, as they could build in places where this is not currently possible. On the contrary, heritage conservators are trying to soften the pressure from investors for new constructions in historical centers. In Hájek's advisory board, architects and people connected to developers predominated; following strong criticism from conservationists, he supplemented it with several employees from the NPÚ.
The chair of the Czech committee of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) at UNESCO, Josef Štulc, whom Hájek removed from the position of chief conservator of the NPÚ, argues that the Czech Republic has fewer monuments than comparable countries. In the Czech Republic, approximately 40,000 objects enjoy monument protection. Bavaria has 110,000 registered monuments; all of Germany has about one million immovable monuments. Great Britain has approximately 750,000 immovable monuments.
According to Štulc, the Czech Republic opted in 1973 for differentiation, categorization, and reduction instead of blanket protection. The third category thus became essentially destructive, and in the ten years since, 3,500 previously registered monuments have disappeared. Additionally, many potential monuments, including top-tier architecture from the 20th century, have been destroyed. Thus, according to Štulc, there is definitely not "excessive" protection of monuments in the Czech Republic; rather, there is untapped potential, for example among industrial architecture buildings.
The Máj department store was completed in 1975. The building was constructed on the site of the neo-Gothic Šlik Palace according to the design of architects Miroslav Masák, John Eisler, and Martin Rajniš from the Liberec studio SIAL, which was founded in 1968 by Karel Hubáček, the author of the TV tower on Ještěd. According to Švácha, the architecture of Máj develops the stimuli of this unique work, but also promptly responds to the challenge posed in 1972 by the project of the Paris museum Centre Georges Pompidou by the pioneers of the high-tech style, Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers.
In this sense, Máj received a response in foreign architectural magazines - such publicity has been granted to only a few Czech buildings of the 20th century. The attention was greater than that which Ještěd can boast of, which is currently vying for UNESCO monument status. For this reason, Švácha believes it is necessary to view Máj as a monument, whether it is declared a monument or not.
If the ministry declared Máj a monument, it would not prevent modifications to it. The status of a monument would only ensure that the very features that have already ensured its historical significance would not be erased, Švácha believes. He trusts that there are architects who would be able to design a respectful reconstruction of Máj - including the original authors.