
Analysis of the Physical Planning Documentation of Preservation Areas and Zones, by Marie Tomíšková
In 2001, the Institute for Spatial Development worked on stage one of a task named Analysis of the Physical Planning Documentation of Preservation Areas and Preservation Zones. The contents, details, and completion of master and regulation plans of preserved towns were examined and checked for applicability to the settlements' development. Though just outlining the subject, the results of the analysis were highly dissatisfying. The job was continued in 2002, analysing village preservation areas. Yet, the results of this stage largely proved what had been discovered before.
Monitoring the Spatial Development of UNESCO-Listed Monuments in the Czech Republic, by Marie Tomíšková
Once inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List, municipalities gain in fame, numbers of visitors and, subsequently, prosperity. On the other hand, there are obligations emerging from such status, one of them being the monitoring of the spatial development of the inscribed sites. It is the Institute for Spatial evelopment who was entrusted with the co-operation with municipalities and preservation authorities in a systematic inspection of the Czech UNESCO-listed locations.
On the Questions of World Cultural and Natural Heritage Preservation in the Czech Republic, by Václav VáňaThe World Heritage List was established
under the terms of The Convention on the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, adopted in November 1972 at the 17th General Conference of UNESCO. The Convention states that a World Heritage Committee will establish, update, and publish a World Heritage List of cultural and natural properties, submitted by the States Parties and considered to be of outstanding universal value. The nominations are ratified if they comply with one of five determined criteria and succeed in a test of authenticity and integrity. The Czech Republic re-entered the Convention in 1993. Nowadays the List contains 11 monuments in the territory of the Czech Republic: the historic centres of Prague, Český Krumlov, Telč, and Kutná Hora (with the Church of St Barbara and the Cathedral of Our Lady at Sedlec), the Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk at Zelená Hora, the cultural landscape of Lednice/Valtice, the historic village of Holašovice, the gardens and castle at Kroměříž, the castle of Litomyšl, the Holy Trinity Column in Olomouc, and the Tugendhat villa in Brno.
The Essentiality of Physical Planning for the Preservation of Historic Settlements, by Dagmar Sedláková
Urban planners and architects often suppose that specialists in monument preservation are not aware of the importance of physical planning for efficient preservation of historic values within a territory. The primary misunderstanding emerges here from the fact that the share of monument preservation in the creation of master plans is not anchored in any regulation of such preservation, nor in the Building Act. So, those involved often seem to claim their demands as late as during the consultations over the plan's concept, “disturbing” thus what urban planners have already done. It does not mean, however, that specialists in monument preservation do not want to take part in the creation of master or regulation plans. On the contrary: there are increasing efforts to define certain preservation limits as soon as a physical planning documentation task is being assigned, so that proficient debates can immediately follow.
The Regulation Plan of the Urban Preservation Area of Olomouc, by Jaromil Přidal
In the middle of 1999, the Municipality of Olomouc approved to an essential physical planning document, the Regulation Plan of the Urban Preservation Area of Olomouc, its mission being to direct and moderate the city centre's spatial and functional development in the following 15 years. Its making was not without problems, as is proved by the long period of four years between the assignment and the publication of the document. Also, a rather complicated historic context is behind the origin of this modern document of physical planning.
Selected Rules of the Revitalization of City Centres, by Erich Vrtiš
The accelerating development of large towns weakens the operational and servicing activities in their centres, mainly in their historicparts. This phenomenon of the 20th century, especially typical for city centres in the US, often leads to a social decline of the life of central parts of big cities. The second half of the last century, though, could often witness a process of efficient regeneration of such parts, restoring their permanent development.
How the Character of Built-up Areas Affects one's Content with Housing, by Jiří Vaníček, Dagmar Buzu
A sociological survey aimed at the conditions of housing was performed between 1995 and 2002 in four locations of the towns of Tábor and Sezimovo Ústí: in an older and a newer housing estate of prefab blocks and in the Old Town of the former, and in a more decent area of blocks in the latter. These locations differ in their architectonic and urban planning characteristics. Though, having asked identical questions to their inhabitants, a rather precise view of how such characteristics affect people's satisfaction with housing could be gained.
The Planning of Catastrophes? by Karel Maier
The planning of towns and regions – as developed since the ancient times, through the colonization of the Middle Ages, up to the “modern” planning of settlement expansion in the 19th and 20th centuries – was basically “optimistic”. Namely, not only the best possible solutions were looked for but also the presupposition of generally favourable (or, at least, not hostile) conditions was taken for granted. Without any particular attention to such fact, the parameters of “standard influence of outer environment” have always been employed, neglecting any odds for those parameters to undergo “non−standard” changes. If contemplated at all, the remedies for the case of “non−standard” circumstances were mostly left with the plans and designs of those systems and apparatuses which themselves may cause such circumstances. Nevertheless, emergency measures of this kind have recently been grasped as an independent issue, to be dealt with by the risk management.