I did not want to participate in the privatization of the Castle. Now it needs to be opened to the public, says architect Pleskot
In the interview you will read:
- What changes is Josef Pleskot considering at Prague Castle
- Why he didn’t feel like the right architect for Václav Havel
- How he communicated with Miloš Zeman and Václav Klaus
- Why did she discourage him from working with Klaus with the sentence “Mr. President doesn’t answer at all”
The newly elected president, Petr Pavel, said that he would like you as a castle architect. Do you already have any concrete outlines for your cooperation?
No, nothing is arranged.
When we talked together in November, you already indicated that you had other plans for Prague Castle…
Yes, but it was in anticipation of the fact that when the current head of state leaves, a new one could take over who would continue the legacy of Masaryk and Havel. And that happened too. Although I was a public supporter of the newly elected president Petr Pavel, I strangely did not expect that he identified with my opinion on architecture to the extent that he would say of his own accord that he would like to cooperate.
So the initiative came purely from Mr. Pavel?
It came from him. When he first reported it in Ostrava, I thought that it had a connection with me because of the Dolní Vítkovice area and that he only used this connection tactically. But he said it for the second time before the elections, on the Radiožurnál broadcast. At that moment, I thought that he probably already had it a bit thought through. When it was played for the third time right after his election, I was almost startled. We sat in front of the TV with the whole family and watched the election like a western with the best ending. And the end was also decorated like this!
Have you been in touch since then?
No, that’s yet to come. I understand that he has a lot to worry about right now and I will have to put a lot of things together. But hopefully that meeting will happen in the foreseeable future.
What will you tell him?
I will definitely tell him that there is a need to democratize Prague Castle and continue the tendency to open it to society, which Masaryk and Havel already had. And also to forget about the closing era, which lasted almost twenty years, if you put it that way. Even Václav Klaus was not exactly the one to open the Castle to the public.
What should be the first step in this regard?
They should be the first to fall