R. Švácha, M. Strakoš: Protection of Post-War Architectural Monuments

On Thursday, May 5, 2016, at 6:00 PM, a lecture by art historians Rostislav Švácha and Martin Strakoš will take place at the Fiducia antiquarian bookshop and club in Ostrava, focusing not only on the protection of monuments from the second half of the twentieth century.

Rostislav Švácha: The Protection of Post-War Architectural Monuments in Global Contexts
The demolition of the Ještěd department store in Liberec by the internationally recognized studio Sial, or the textile factory by the prominent architect Zdeněk Plesník in Prostějov, represents just the tip of the iceberg of barbarism that is almost systematically destroying monuments to late modernism not only in Eastern Europe. This contribution will compare how Czech heritage preservation confronted the legacy of modern architecture from the interwar period in the 1960s and how today's society addresses the architectural heritage of the recent past, including the 1960s. At the same time, we will try to answer the question of what the reasons for this "new barbarism" are and how it can be resisted.

Martin Strakoš: The Myth of Sisyphus and Heritage Preservation of Architectural Heritage from the Second Half of the 20th Century
Against the background of modern reflections on the human condition, the author will present a recap of the interim results of efforts to heritage protect examples of architecture from this period in the region of Northern Moravia and Czech Silesia, extending into Poland and Slovakia.

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