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State of decay

City Hall starts a Web site aimed at shaming monument owners into caring for them

By Kimberly Ashton
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
February 7th, 2007 issue

For 200 years, the Invalidovna hospital in Karlín took in wounded soldiers and housed them as they recovered. Now it’s an invalid itself, all but abandoned and rapidly deteriorating.

Invalidovna’s condition is hardly unique among Prague’s stately buildings and monuments, many of which are growing increasingly derelict. Now, City Hall is trying to do something about it by shaming the owners of these properties.
It has created a Web site listing the city's 30 worst-kept properties, along with their addresses and the names of their owners. Joining Invalidovna on the list are Desfourský Palác in Prague 1, Palác Hrobčických in Prague 2 and Císařský mlýn in Prague 6.
Dilapidated Addresses
  • Desfourský palác, Na Florenci 21, Prague 1
  • Palác hrobčických, Rytířská 20, Prague 1
  • Pařížská 9, Prague 1
  • Vyšehrad Train Station, Svobodova 2, Prague 2
  • U Cibulky 1, Prague 5
  • Císařský mlýn, Mlýnská 4, Prague 6
  • Na Malovance 20, Prague 6
  • Kajetánka, Na Petynce 23, Prague 6
  • U Trojského zámku, Prague 7
  • Invalidovna, Sokolovská 138, Prague 8
To date 10,450 people have visited the Web site since it debuted in December.
“Dilapidated monuments are of course a huge problem,” says Jan Kněžínek, secretary of the city’s Monument Preservation Committee. “It is caused by the attitude of the owners or unclear property-rights issues. ... The owner of the monument is obliged by the law to take care of its preservation.”
Government bureaucracy appears partially to blame. Individual districts are powerless to enforce property upkeep, and certain properties fall under state, rather than local, jurisdiction. Furthermore, others are protected properties with their own sets of regulations.
Prague City Hall calls Invalidovna one of the worst examples of property neglect.
Sitting behind a quiet park off Sokolovska street, behind the crumbling pink exterior is a grand structure that has weathered the assaults of time badly. Shards of glass hang from windowsills. Statues atop the withered building peer over a dreary park.  Plastic tape cordons off the broken facade.
The Defense Ministry has owned it since 1918. The last patients were moved from its rooms in 1930, and since 1945 Invalidovna has housed the Army National Archives.
The ministry plans to move the documents to another building in Prague 6–Ruzyně, at a cost of 150 million Kč ($6.9 million), according to ministry spokesman Jan Pejšek.
“We suppose the moving will start in 2008,” Pejšek says.
Pejšek adds that the ministry was not aware that Invalidovna was on the city’s list of derelict sites. He noted that it is a protected property and any renovations must be approved by the National Heritage Office.
Invalidovna’s ultimate fate is unknown. The Defense Ministry plans, as required by law, to offer it to other state agencies for free. If that’s unsuccessful, the ministry will try to find a buyer.
Passing the buck
Kajetánka, in Prague 6, is in even worse shape.
Completely dilapidated, the property lies behind a stand of trees off busy Patočkova street.  Its large stone entryway is open, and a muddy path leads to a miserable building.  Trash is strewn everywhere and clings to the edge of an abandoned little green pond.
As part of a restitution claim from the communist era, the former owners of Kajetánka, Jan Kolátor and Oldřich Kolátor, got the property back in 1992.
They approached Prague 6 Town Hall with proposals to develop the site, including a pitch to build a skyscraper there, but all the ideas were rejected, according to Martin Šalek, a spokesman for Prague 6.
In 2000, the owners sold the site to an Italian company, which sold it yet again in 2005 to an Ireland-based international real estate company, Quinlan Private.
Euan Edworthy, a spokesman for Quinlan Private, won’t go much into the company’s plans but says it will study what to do with the property this year.
“The intention is to restore the villa and the park to its former glory,” Edworthy says.
Such hopes seem a long way off for Vyšehrad Train Station in Prague 2, built in 1905 and an active hub until the 1960s.  
In the 1980s, the building underwent a reconstruction that architect Václav Vondrášek says had the opposite effect. Since then, the building has been falling apart at a remarkable speed. Nevertheless, in 2001 it was named a cultural monument.
But Vondrášek, who is also a deputy mayor in Prague 2, says his district has no power over the care of monuments. That resides with the City Council, which can prod wayward owners into taking better care of their properties.
The owner in this case is Czech Railways (ČD), which can’t order a reconstruction on its own — that has to be done by the railway department, which is part of the Transportation Ministry.
A spokesman for ČD did not respond to a request for a comment.  
Benefits to decay?
The city can give grants to owners looking to fix up their properties or can help restore them, but city spokesman Jiří Wolf says he doesn’t know if any have been given out so far.
Some owners want buildings on their properties to fall apart so the building department will order their demolition, according to Šalek of Prague 6 Town Hall. A city-ordered demolition would give the owner a clean piece of land to develop.
Until then, the city’s main weapon against owners of shabby buildings is to send them a letter warning them that they are breaking the law — and to try to whip them into shape with an online shaming.
Hela Balínová and Naďa Černá contributed to this report.

Kimberly Ashton can be reached at kashton@praguepost.com


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