How to Move an Immovable Monument?. Cooperation with UNESCO for the Transfer of a Church in the North Bohemian Town of Most

0583219 - ÚDU 2024 eng A - Abstract
Johanidesová, Tereza
How to Move an Immovable Monument? Cooperation with UNESCO for the Transfer of a Church in the North Bohemian Town of Most.
[Art Transportation in Times of War and Peace. Berlin, 09.11.2023-10.11.2023]
Method of presentation: Přednáška
Event organizer: Centre for Art Market Studies, Department of Digital Provenance at Technische Universität Berlin, Berlinische Galerie – Museum für Moderne Kunst
URL events: https://arthist.net/archive/40481 
Institutional support: RVO:68378033
Keywords : transfers of cultural heritage * cultural diplomacy * transfer of knowledge * UNESCO * church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Most (West Bohemia) * Nubian Monuments (Egypt)
OECD category: Arts, Art history
https://fokum.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Symposium_2023_Booklet.pdf

The paper deals with one of the most significant cases of transfer of an immovable monument in the history of Czechoslovakia - the transfer of the church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in the North Bohemian town of Most, where the entire historic core of the city was demolished for the purpose of coal mining. The paper will not recapitulate in detail the history of the whole case. The aim is to focus on a lesser known circumstance of the preparation and subsequent implementation of the transfer of the church, which was the negotiation of cooperation between Czech experts and technologists with UNESCO. The intention at the time was to investigate the feasibility of mutual cooperation in the implementation of the relocation of the building and the use of technological procedures that had already been applied in the rescue of Egyptian monuments threatened by the construction of the Aswan Dam on the Nile in the 1960s. At the same time that the rescue of ancient Egyptian monuments from flooding was being carried out, the technical possibilities of how to preserve the church were being considered. The present paper thus opens up the question of the transfer of technological knowledge in the relocation of heritage objects, while at the same time contributing to the contemporary history of heritage diplomacy. Last but not least, it also touches upon general issues of East-West collaboration of expert scientists and engineers for the purpose of preserving cultural heritage.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0351223