Kutná Hora celebrates 20 years as a member of the family of UNESCO World Heritage Sites!

One of the most important milestones in the modern history of Kutná Hora took place in 1995:”The Historical Town Centre with the Cathedral of St Barbara and the Cathedral of Our Lady at Sedlec“,as stated in an official document, was added to UNESCO’s World Cultural and Natural Heritage List on 9^th December. At that time, it was the fourth location in the Czech Republic to be included, where as today it is one of twelve on this list, which is the world’s most prestigious.

The historical town centre of Kutná Hora covers an area of62 hectares and has within its borders 319 cultural monuments and two national cultural monuments – the Italian Court and the Cathedral of St Barbara. This makes it the fourth-large sturban heritage reserve in the Czech Republic after Prague, Olomouc and Brno. What makes Kutná Hora specific, however, is its atmosphere as a former mining town, whose historical core comprises of a remarkable amalgamation of a street networkand smaller squares on sloping terrain with irregular residential blocksand a diversity of individual solitary buildings. Deep beneath the city streets is an underground world interlaced with a dense network of tunnels and galleries, mostly already buried or flooded, which nevertheless remind us of their existence here and there. Kutná Hora also has one of the most characteristic city panoramas: Probably the most impressiveview of the city isfromthevalley of the Vrchlice Creek, where only a slight turnon your heels affords you ahalf a kilometre long vista of the city’s most important buildings arranged side by side along the valley’sedge.The present-day suburb of Sedlec,with its former Cistercian monastery, is also an inseparable part of the historical centre. Duringits heyday in the Middle Ages,this monastery was a counterpoint to the city; where as Kutná Hora was a pulsating hub of activity day and night, the Sedlec monastery was a quiet place of prayer and contemplation. The most important buildingisstillthe Cathedral of Our Lady at Sedlec.

In the Middle Ages, Kutná Hora was, after Prague, the second-most importanttown in the Kingdom of Bohemia. Builders and buyers of works of art did not wish to lag behind Prague, and so they always invited the most important builders and artists, who were also busy in the capital, to work on their grand projects.We can mention just a few illustrious names, such as Peter Parler and Benedict Ried or the as yet unknown master of Smíšek’s chapel, Domenico Orsi in the Baroque period, Jan Blažej Santini, Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer or Petr Brandl, Josef Mockeror Friedrich Ohmann in the 19^th century and Pavel Janak, for example, at the start of the 20^th century. They have all created an extremely architecturally as well as typologically rich collection, in which each period from the 14^th to the 18^th century is also represented by a structure of European quality. Prague is the only other Czech city that can make such a claim.

The historical centre has been completely transformed over the last 20 years. During this period, construction and restoration work proceeded on an unprecedented scale, and their frequency definitely surpassed even the period of the preservation of local monuments in the late 19^th century. In first place areboth of Kutná Hora‘s ”cathedrals” – the Cathedral of St Barbara in 1996-2012 and the Cathedralof Our Lady at Sedlec in 2001-2008.The restoration of the Italian Court, the Church of the Virgin Mary in Náměť and the Cemetery Church of All Saints Church near the city centre has commenced. Well-deserved attention hasfinally been focused on the extensive complex ofthe Jesuit College and its adaptation for gallery purposes, which, in terms of the size of the exhibition area, has become the second-largest institutionof its kind in the country. The revitalisation of dwellings constituted a separate chapter altogether. The key project, which had a dramatic affect on how the ”interior” of the city was perceived, was there construction of roads, covering twenty streets, foursquare and two parks in 2009-2011. This work did not involve merely putting in new road surfaces, but also the relaying of utility networks (with the excavations often turning into archaeological sites), installation of new light fixtures, street furniture and information system. The asphalt surface with numerous patches and potholes was largely restored back to the historical paving from quarry stone -so called cobbles or smallballast, as is, for example, displayed on the route from the Church of St James to the Little Castle (Hrádek). The character of some areas has changed, and the removal of footpaths has thus restored their earlier form.

The last two decades have also been favourable for the Kutná Hora heritage reservein terms of the funding it has received for the restoration of its monuments and urban core. Funding was received from the subsidy programmes of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, as well as directly from the state budget for the restoration of the Cathedral of StBarbara, from the budget of the Central Bohemian Region for the Jesuit Collegeas well as from this region’s Monument Renovation Fundor subsidies from EU structural fundsfor the reconstruction of roads. In 2003, the City of Kutná Hora established its own subsidy programme called the Regeneration Fund, through which it makes contributions from its budget to private owners and churches to aid the restoration oftheir property.If we summarise these amounts for the past 20 years and add to them the proportional partfrom private sources, we come to the conclusion that an amount of approximatelytwo billion crowns has been spent on the restorationof the historical core.

Entry on UNESCO’s World Cultural and Natural Heritage Listin 1995 became a defining momentinthe modern history of Kutná Hora.The long-termefforts of many representatives of state agencies, local governmentas well as private owners and churches resulted in the preservation and restoration of what is most available to the city.Understandably, there are still many other sites that are in need of urgent restoration, and that the city as a whole requires a sensitive approach to be applied to its further development. However, it can rightfully be said that Kutná Hora has retainedits unique characterand look,and consolidated its standing among the most important historical settlements in Europé.

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