Case study: The Battle for Jezeří Chateau: Difference between revisions

In the eyes of the mining authorities, Jezeří Chateau was becoming an increasingly hated structure, allegedly an obstacle to further advances in coal mining, although it is situated outside the coal seam. The official caretaker of the building – the Regional Conservation Office in Ústí nad Labem, which had no means even to do basic maintenance – was reluctant to invest its limited resources in a building endangered by demolition, the proposal for which had already been made. It made several efforts to get rid of the dilapidated building: by assigning it to the mine corporation! It even dismissed the only employee – the chateau custodian. Therefore, the presence of Dr Marek and his six colleagues in the field office, which they refused to abandon, was the only obstacle to carrying out the demolition plan.

In the meantime, the Jezeří issue made it into an international forum. It was talked about at geological, hydrogeological, engineering geological and geotechnical conferences all over the world (Melbourne, Washington, Nuremberg, Granada, Moscow, etc.), but mostly by others. After Dr Marek submitted his final research report, there were suddenly scores of ambitious experts willing to declare the results, conclusions and interpretations as their own, and boast about them abroad. Dr Marek was not even allowed to read out my paper at the World Geology Congress in Moscow in 1984. However, he produced a short film about the stability issues of the Ore Mountain slopes due to the coal mining for Washington D.C. and a paper on a similar issue for Melbourne. Ing. arch. Zdeněk Stáhlík of Terplan and he became expert advisors for another, more artistic short film on the issues around Jezeří and the Ore Mountains.