The National Heritage Institute was formed on the 1st January 2003 as a state-sponsored professional organisation responsible for the care of historic buildings, sites and objects in the whole country, as per Act No. 20/ 1987 Coll., on State Heritage Preservation in the wording of Act No. 320/2002 Coll., on the amending and repealing of certain laws in connection with the termination of the work of district authorities. The activities of this organisation is governed not only the above-mentioned law, but also by Guideline No. 66/1988 Coll., issued by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.
The forerunner to the Central Department / Headquarters of the NPU was the State Institute for Monument Care (1958-2002).
History & Development
1958-1969, 1970-1979, 1980-1989, 1990-1999, 2000
1958-1969
The State Institute for Monument Care and Environmental Protection (SUPPOP) was established under Act No. 22/1958 Coll., on Cultural Heritage in 1958. Its remit was to form expert methodology, scientific-research and informational bases in the field of heritage care and environmental protection.
It followed on from the work of its professional forerunners from the First Republic (pre WWII) in the domain of heritage care - the National Photo Survey Institute (1919) and National Heritage Offices (in Prague and Brno) - and in the work of its immediate precursor in the 1950s, the State Heritage Authorities. The SUPPOP took over the mission and function, and also the rich documentation funds (photographic, plan, academic etc.) of these defunct institutions. Right from the beginning it was fully appointed with specialists in all the main departments, participating in research, protection and presentation of historic sites and objects and protected nature areas.
The totalitarian communist regime (1948-89) influenced and often deformed the endeavours to protect and care for the national cultural heritage in a marked fashion. Despite this, specialists and research professionals at the Institute took pains to have objective and qualified approach to understanding the heritage fund, suggesting a methodological approach to protection and care of individual types of historic items, as well as the presentation and promotion of the cultural heritage, including specialised training of employees in this field.
Shortly after its foundation the SUPPOP directed the creation of the National Register of Immovable and Movable Cultural Heritage. It was a task of important significance, for which the Institute created a qualified methodology, sample processed inventory records, and trained specialist staff of the then newly created Regional Centres for State Monument Care and Environmental Protection. However, the standard of completing the task was unfortunately hampered by the unrealistically short time limit (1962-63) and the participation of many insufficiently qualified external workers. Despite these problems a basic heritage fund was selected (30,000 immovables and 50,000 movables), on which state heritage care institutions focused their attention.
The SUPPOP conceived the idea of the first set of National Cultural Properties, where professional expert criteria originally prevailed. The selection was later expanded several times, and unfortunately also deformed by political viewpoints. The Institute also strived for a professional presentation of selected castles and historic country houses open to the public, where relevant specialists participated in installations. The first methodika of designating historic town centres as heritage reservations also appeared in this period, and professional institutes commenced basic research and compilation of inventories of historic town developments as groundwork for the 30 gradually assembled reservation decrees.
The SUPPOP became involved in nascent international cooperation both with the participation of Doc. PhD. Jakub Pavel in the conception of a cornerstone international document, which came to be called the Venice Charter (1964), and attendance during the founding of the International Committee for Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) in 1965 in Poland. The director of the Institute, PhD. Vladimír Novotný, DrSc., became a member of the executive committee of this highly prestigious international organisation. In 1966 the SUPPOP organised an international ICOMOS symposium on regeneration of historic towns in Prague and Levoča (now Slovakia), which lead to the adoption of a document called the Levoča Charter.
Normalisation in the 1970s meant the ebbing of interest by the totalitarian state in historic sites and town centres, and across the board a political and economic preference for the construction of new tower block housing estates. Professional heritage departments, including in particular the State Institute for Reconstructing Heritage Towns and Buildings, reacted with maximal acceleration of research and documentation, as well as searching for new possibilities to protect and regenerate historic towns as a counterbalance to their blanket destruction and replacement with aesthetically jarring housing estates (in Horni Slavkov, Chomutov, Žďar nad Sazavou, Havličkův Brod and many other towns).
A study by the SUPPOP, "Registration and Categorisation of Historic Towns in the ČSR", which identified for the first time the country's historic urban fund and designed its evaluative structure, was of great use. It was followed by extensive research and evaluative work during the gradual preparation of refining the decrees on town heritage reservations (originally 33, today 40). The consummation of theoretical findings of that period was the international ICOMOS symposium "New Life for Historic Sites", Prague - Bratislava 1976, whose closing resolution was prepared at the Institute. Czechoslovak Heritage Preservation presented the results of urban protection and reconstruction in the trilingual international ICOMOS Bulletin in 1976, implemented by the Institute. In 1977 SUPPOP organised an international ICOMOS symposium on historic gardens in Prague and Kroměřiž. Inventories of the collections at castles and historic country houses managed by the state, including reinstallation, also proceeded apace. Unfortunately, highly qualified professional preparation was, particularly in this field, far too often devalued by ideological censorship, and, as result, a twisted historical approach influenced the presentation of former feudal and religious sites.
The Institute also continued with conservation and renovation of National Cultural Properties Significant projects launched in this period under the methodological guidance of the Institute include the research, restoration and opening up of the Romanesque Bishops (Přemyslid) Palace in Olomouc, the renovation and restoration of the Renaissance historic country house of Litomyšl, the conservation and adaptation of the St. Agnes Monastery in Prague for the use of the National Gallery, the much-debated reconstruction of the Gothic house 'U Zvonu' in Old Town Square, the rehabilitation of Troja Palace, or the renovation of the cladding and restoration of the wall paintings at Karlštejn Castle. In the 1980s successful completion of the restoration of the National Theatre, the rescue work on Braun's sculptural decorations at Kuks, the restoration of the Romanesque paintings in the rotunda at Znojmo, the conservation of the ruined castles of Rabi, Zvikov and Bezděz or conservation, renovation and rehabilitation of the original spacious compositions of the Rudolfinum concert hall in Prague were added to these. Some significant documents of that time, government resolutions on heritage restoration programmes and further development of national heritage care were merely political, had not brought expected results, and turned out to be typical representation of their time. The proclamation on complex heritage care was never fulfilled in practice. The state cared only for narrowly selected isolated cases, for example the showcase 'complex renovation' of several town areas (Český Krumlov - Horni ul.), while the rest of the cultural heritage fund, especially in border and mining districts, deteriorated even further.
The 1980s meant the preparation of a new law on state heritage preservation, which was adopted as Act No. 20 in 1987. The SUPPOP was also involved in ten international projects in cooperation with Eastern European countries. The Institute coordinated the project "Methods, Techniques and Organisation for Regenerating Historic Urban Ensembles", which gave rise to concrete synthetic works in the area of protection, research and categorisation of historic towns (in the 1980-1990 period, Ing. Arch. A.Vosahlik, CSc.). Internationally, the Institute made itself visible by the organization of an ICOMOS symposium "New Functions for Castles and Historic country houses in the Life of Society", Prague - Bratislava 1983.
An important enterprise, requiring a lot of determination and perseverance, was the preparation, and eventually the opening of a two-year (third level) course on heritage care and management, included in the system of further staff education in the area of heritage management, which SUPPOP ran for wardens, guides, and professionals in heritage organizations at castles and historic country houses in the years 1981-83, producing 22 graduates in the first cycle. The Heritage Care and Management Course has continued in regular two-year cycles ever since 1985. Graduates now include civil servants and council employees, professional heritage organisation employees, as well as owners of building firms and stonemasonry firms, or draughtsmen who participate in the repair and renovation of historic objects. A positive development is the enrolment of students from the ranks of the Czech Police who secure the protection of cultural heritage.
The grid plotting of the heritage fund of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia onto maps with the scale of 1:500,000, 1:200,000 and 1:50,000 was a significant undertaking. The outputs provide an overview of the distribution of significant heritage sites within the territory of the Czech Republic, and are a good basis for zoning and regulatory planning. Good teamwork on the extensive research project "Prognosis for the Development in State Monument Care up to the Year 2000 (2010)" brought enduring valuable results; a team of experts was assembled from all the heritage care departments, led by Jaroslav Svaton.
The Government Act No. 230 in 1985, whose groundwork was prepared by SUPPOP, referred critically to the bad condition of heritage reservations, reflecting the dismal state of the economic and social system.
The formality of this period was characteristically demonstrated by the establishment of the State Monument Care and Environmental Protection Headquarters, which was a typical piece of period bureaucracy without undue influence on professional care for the heritage fund.
The 1990s meant fundamental changes on the political and economical scene, with the return to democracy and market economy. This phase brought entirely new challenges, above all in connection with changes in the ownership of historic objects. In 1990 the separation of environmental protection from heritage care took place. In this year, the State Institute for Monument Care (SUPP) organised an interdepartmental meeting of professionals in heritage care at the historic country house in Roztěž. Following the meeting, a working group was formed in order to formulate the basis of a new law on heritage under the conditions of renewed democracy. Unfortunately, the excellent work of this committee has not been duly acknowledged by the issuance of new legal norms to this day. During those years the Institute significantly participated in searching the archives and documentation bases essential for the objective and righteous resolution of restitution claims for movable and immovable historic objects (primarily castles and historic country houses, including their contents).
After the fall of the totalitarian regime it was rather urgent to revise the protected heritage fund; on one hand to remove the disproportionate amount of sites representing Communist history, and on the other to inscribe many sites and buildings, especially churches, that had been previously ideologically discriminated against. The SUPP took the responsibility for the professional standard of sessions held by the Ministry of Culture's Committee for Evaluating Cultural Heritage, which dealt with several hundred cases a year. A significant step was the considerable extension of protection to sites and landscape, which resulted in the designation of 209 town heritage zones, 61 village heritage reservations, 164 village heritage zones and 17 landscape heritage zones. The methodological coordination was provided by the Institute.
In relation to historic towns, the Institute updated "The Conception of Protection for Historic Towns in the Czech Republic for 1995-97" with a forecast to 2000. This included approx. 300 historic town areas protected as heritage reservations or zones.
After 1989 widespread looting of churches and theft of historic artefacts occurred, with catastrophic results for our cultural heritage. In addition, both legally owned and stolen artefacts were also massively exported or smuggled abroad. In response, the Institute notably participated in the fight against theft and illegal trafficking. It instigated the final wording of Act No. 71/1994 Coll., on the Sale and Export of Objects of Cultural Value; special teams were appointed to help identify and return stolen treasures, to compile documentation for church interiors in an attempt to rescue them, and to install security and signaling systems in endangered buildings.
At that time it also became necessary to resolve the management of the archaeological fund, including the organisation of rescue archaeology research. Changes and pronounced restrictions in the budget of the Academy of Science at the cusp of 1992 and 1993 resulted in four specialised Institutes for Archaeological Heritage Care being established as of 1st May 1995, each in its own way contributing to the implementation of rescue archaeology research. With this the Ministry of Culture initiated the implementation of a project establishing a system in archaeological heritage preservation in the Czech Republic. The project was introduced by the Archaeological Committee of the Ministry of Culture, founded on 18th April 1994 at the suggestion of the SUPP as an advisory board for the Deputy Minister of Culture. The coordination of rescue archaeological research is handled by the Archaeological Institutes at the Academy of Science in Prague and in Brno, and Regional Archaeological Committees. Representatives of archaeological departments met in 1993 and 1994 to discuss the necessity of establishing an information system for archaeological sites. The Institutes gather information on the launch of archaeological research, log their results, and fulfil the tasks of research and development. On 1st February 1996 the SUPP formed the Department for Preservation of the Archaeological Fund, which proposes the concept of information compilation, establishes documentation fundamentals for the proper care and management of the archaeological fund, and designs an open information system of archaeological sites, whilst working on tasks of research and development in cooperation with district authorities and archaeological institutions.
The SUPP’s new activities were reinforced by international cooperation. According to its statute, part of the Institute's work is to manage the secretariat of the international organisation ICOMOS, which fulfils the main aims of international cooperation. Every year on the 18th April, on the International Day for Monuments and Sites, the Czech National Committee of ICOMOS and SUPP host a specialised seminar on a certain theme, namely:
- in 1991 "The European Significance of the Cultural Heritage of Czechoslovakia"
- in 1992 "Baroque Year-UNESCO"
- in 1993 "UNESCO’s World Cultural Heritage"
- in 1994 "30 years of the Venice Charter"
- in 1995 "30 years of ICOMOS"
- in 1996 "Cultural Heritage and Social Changes"
- in 1997 "The Personality of St. Vojtěch in the Context of Cultural Heritage"
- in 1998 "The Year of Charles IV - 650th Anniversary of the Foundation of the New Town in Prague"
In 1992 an international seminar with the title "Identity of Heritage in Central Europe" in Opočno was also arranged, and in 1994 the seminar "The Values and Functions of Country Churches in Urbanised Landscapes". The activity of the ICOMOS secretariat was complemented in 1995 with the organisation of the first ICOMOS European Regional Conference in Český Krumlov on the theme "Authenticity of Heritage". The Institute prepared the release of two publications for the international community, namely "Czechoslovak Heritage Management", which came out as a separate number 188 in the review Monuments Historiques in 1993 in France, and the publication "Heritage Objects and Sites in the Czech Republic", which was released in 1996 in Sri Lanka and distributed on the occasion of the General Conference ICOMOS in Sofia. The main international activity in 1997 was arranging the ICOMOS/IFLA 97 International Symposium "Landscape Patrimony", which SUPP released the proceedings of. The methodological role of the Institute was also applied in the arranging of the seminar on the theme "The Principles of Heritage Preservation in the Conservation and Restoration of Historic Buildings and Sites", held in collaboration with ICOMOS in November 1997. In May 1998 the Institute joined in with the preparations for "European Heritage Days 1998".
The Institute, in cooperation with the Czech section of ICOMOS, also undertakes the professional part of work for the nomination of selected Czech historic objects and sites to the UNESCO World Heritage List. Lately its scientific-research activities under the framework of grant projects has also expanded.
With support from the Ministry of Culture in 1999 the Institute was able to purchase the archive of SURPMO, thus preserving a unique collection of archivalia, which contains a photo archive with negatives, documentation of building archaeological research, with bearing on historic buildings and projects.
The year 2000 brought several significant changes for the State Institute for Monument Care. On 3rd January 2000 the Institute received a new statute, delivered by the Ministry of Culture under No. 1622/1999. As a consequence, the work of all the organisational subdivisions of the Institute was revised and precisely specified. Its sections were also reorganised, and incorporated into a new organisational system, which was approved by the Ministry under No. 12279/2000 with effect from 1st December 2000.
Both documents issued stemmed from "The Conception of Effective Management of the Heritage Fund in the Czech Republic up to 2005". They set the conditions for improving the quality of professional work of the Institute and intensifying its professional methodological function in relation to the regional State Heritage Institutes. The director was made responsible for compiling a Plan for Methodological Direction in the Organisation of National Heritage Management in the Czech Republic up to 2005, and negotiating it with regional institutes. This conceptual material was widely consulted within the Institute, and qualified by the Ministry of Culture on the 10th April 2001 under No. 6375/2001. It suggested and specified altogether 8 main directions ("pillars") of activities in state heritage management, uniting the research and professional work in the interests of better ways of finding, renovation and presentation of the heritage fund, and also better vision and uniformity in delivering expert opinions, and hence more legal confidence for the owners of historic objects or sites.
A department for archaeological research for buildings was founded within the Institute. Even though regular research has always been done, both centrally and locally, the establishment of a new department catered to the acutely felt need to deepen and examine the methodology and to set definite binding qualitative standards for this work. Today, research work is deservedly thought of as the basis for all other professional activities and operations.
The training of new professionals and their ongoing learning and education is another of the important tasks of heritage management. A newly founded department will take systematic care of that. As the SUPP has been an accredited educational institution since 1995 it will regularly organise many educational seminars and other events outside the Heritage Care and Management course. As a consequence of some grant conditions it will also participate in the preparation of a study course for a Doctorate in Heritage Preservation.
In 2000 the long-term renovation, carried out in stages by the SUPP, of the Lower Palace Gardens underneath Prague Castle came to an end. The ceremonial opening of the Kolowrat and Lesser Fürstenberg Gardens, and the entrance area from Valdštejnska Street (between the Kolowrat and Palffy Palaces) took place on 28th August 2000.