Project "Renewal of the Petipsy château" in the Czech Republic (2021 – 2024)
Project is financed by a grant from the EEA Grants and Norway Grants (www.eeagrants.org) from the program Culture/Revitalization of movable and immovable cultural heritage. Ministry of Finance of the Czech Republic is the program intermediary in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic. History
Initi
ally a Gothic fortress, the Petipsy château in the Usti nad Labem region was a local center of economic administration and a landscape dominant. As the once-grandeur swiftly started to decay in the latter half of the 20th century, the Via Levamente association acquired its ruin in 2012 and readily launched its rescue. The object is shortlisted as one of the most endangered local heritage sites. The château complex, including its farming yard, represents an inseparable historical whole of supreme cultural and historical significance, which is not merely regional, but exceeds to a much wider scale: the cultural potential of the Petipsy château predetermines it to an immensely important position among the historical monuments of the North-Bohemian region as well as the monuments located along the entire Czech-German borderline. Project objective
The aim of the project is to rescue an immovable cultural historical monument from its complete devastation, to make it accessible to the widest public and to create opportunities for its public use, and thus improve the quality of the cultural heritage administration. Besides the construction interventions, the project includes presenting the monument as a part of Czech cultural and historical heritage in its entire context, including its on-line presentation in digital form. The project will contribute to increasing the attractiveness and vivacity of the environment and will support the social and economic development of the region via wider and higher-quality offer of the existing cultural services and via creating new ones – the château will become a place of community encounters, a place, which will allow for the inclusion of various minorities (e.g., people endangered by social exclusion, including ethnic minorities), but also an educational hub in the cultural and historical context; among other things, thanks to the permanent interactive exhibition “The Samo’s Empire”. Presentation of a chapter from the Slavic history via the subject of the Samo’s empire exceeds the borders of the region and becomes not only a national educational potential but, simultaneously, a natural treasure of the hitherto devastated landscape of North-West Bohemia. Besides the positive impact on tourism, the realization of a supra-national exhibition at the château will have an immensely positive influence on the local communities. via completing the Gothic section of its northern wing and reconstructing the entire western and part of the southern wings, statics securing and roofing and restoring eroded vaults, plus other inevitable repairs. The complex will be barrier-free. Another aim is to breathe new life in it and allow for its meaningful and fully-fledged use by the public. The château will offer a non-stop on-line virtual tour and open door to wide public during the tourist season. The expected increase in the number of visitors and in the income generated by the revitalized monument and the planned events will thus support Czech cultural heritage and boost the potential and the development of the region. Project partnership
Project has two partners, Czech and Norwegian. Norwegian partner – AVALEN AS
The partnership cooperation during the realization of the project will be based on detailed, time-lapse (photo- and video-) documenting the progress of the rescue construction works. The aim is to during five visits to Petipsy, provide a documentation of the rescue and reconstruction works and records of the changing condition of the individual architectural parts of the historical monument. The result of the partnership, in the framework of the Publicity project, will be a time-lapse presentation, describing the monument’s transformation from a useless and unused “ruin” to an object of national heritage with returned historical value and a community site serving to the widest public. The photos and videos made for this presentation documenting the château’s revitalization will be accessible on the web, in the framework of promoting the monument and its use for organizing cultural and social events (digitized presentation of the monument). Sustainability of the project
During the sustainability period (2025 – 2029), the progress of the project will be documented and the outcomes will be continuously accessible on-line via social media/the Facebook and Via Levamente association´s website. During the 1st sustainability year, the Norwegian partner will organize an exhibition of these outcomes and, depending on the possibilities of using the exhibition spaces, will re-run it in the next years. Czech partner - Svetlo (Light) association. It´s mission is to provide for the development of preventive activities for youth, adults and families and to create conditions for the activity of all the associated members. During the realization of the project, Svetlo will facilitate opening of the Petipsy château to it´s clients via organizing workshops, thus contributing to the social inclusion of young people endangered by social exclusion. The client´s base of the organization is children and young people in the age from 6 to 26 years, who represent an immensely vulnerable group experiencing unfavorable social situations (it can be conflict social situations, difficult life situations, limiting life conditions and the like), and are thus endangered by social exclusion. Svetlo will prepare, organize and realize workshops on various subjects in the château for the it´s group of clients.
