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

Case study: The Battle for Jezeří Chateau (view source)

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 ==The period of greatest threat==
+===Coal undermines the existence of the chateau===
 In the years 1973-76, engineering-geological mapping was undertaken in the foregrounds of the Czechoslovak Army opencast mine, from whose conclusions stemmed a desperate need for more detailed research of the coal basin limits in 1980s. This mainly confirmed the fears that the extent of the crystalline massif of the Ore Mountains could significantly influence coal mining activities and vice-versa. It was found that it was necessary to urgently verify the state of the crystalline massif, its disrupted tectonic plates, efflorescent processes and landslide activity in the very places where the coal basin limits abutted the Jezeří chateau grounds. The responsibility for the research was given to Construction Geology Prague under the research management of RNDr. Jan Marek.
 In 1975, Dr Marek informed the Regional Office of State Cultural Heritage and Nature Conservation of the risk to the Jezeří Chateau heritage building and the surrounding mountainsides. He set up a permanent field office in an abandoned old tower of the chateau with the Regional Office’s approval.
+The critical site became popular after he submitted his final report on the engineering geological mapping and especially after his articles were published. Czechoslovak Television asked him to on their economics show “Is It Worth It?” from the chateau courtyard. Jezeří started to host journalists, political officials, leading scientists, entire busloads from the Regional Mining Authority in Most, Báňské projekty in Teplice, the Regional Office of State Cultural Heritage and Nature Conservation in Ústí nad Labem, the Central Geological Institute, various institutes of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, and universities in Prague, Brno, Ostrava, Bratislava and Košice. Josef Velek – the only journalist with an openly pro-environmental focus – arrived. Dr Marel spent several evenings debating with this young author of such well-known books as “Jak jsem bránil přírodu” (“How I Protected Nature”), “Příběhy pro dvě nohy” (“Stories for Two Legs”) and others that the communists in control didn’t like much. He began to write a new book about the Jezeří problem, but never completed it: he died diving in the Red Sea soon afterwards. Wagging tongues said somebody pushed him.
+The growing popularity of the Jezeří area was in sharp contrast to the frightening state of neglect of the chateau itself. The expansive building had been abandoned in 1954, it had been stripped of all its furnishings (burgled) and managed in a hands-off way by the Regional Office of State Cultural Heritage and Nature Conservation by means of a single custodian. Outside the scope of interest of district or region-level political authorities, it was rapidly decaying. To make the responsible political and administrative authorities and, more importantly, mining institutions aware of the real value of the building, Dr Marek compiled an overview of its historic and structural development, assessing its importance, and published it in the North Bohemian Mines professional journal “Hnědé uhlí” (“Brown Coal”).
+===A new geological survey is commissioned===
+The practical result was that, almost simultaneously, both the State Cultural Heritage Conservation and the general management of North Bohemian Mines commissioned Stavební geologie to perform a new, detailed, purpose-driven engineering geological survey of the Jezeří area. It was obvious beforehand that the survey was primarily meant to either confirm or refute his conclusions and interpretations made as part of the previous geological mapping. It was also evident that it would not succeed without unconventional and costly mining engineering methods, tunnels, shafts and deep core holes. It was not clear beforehand where to put them, what sizes to make them, who would design them, who would make them and how, and who would pay for them. A professional project design had to be made for each separate mining facility. In order to clarify those issues, Dr Marek spent the whole of 1977 making a detailed survey of the cellars and other underground spaces of the Jezeří Chateau grounds, and commissioned geophysical measurements in several points along the chateau buildings and the surrounding slopes where he had predicted the existence of tectonic fault zones. Only after that did he design subsequent, technically demanding works. He had his entire design reviewed by the most distinguished professionals, his old professors Quido Záruba and Vojtěch Mencl, the founders of the scientific discipline of engineering geology. They both came to Jezeří several times despite their advanced age of around 80 years.