Jehlicka has assumed the embarrassing role to put clearly what was a foregone conclusion anyway: the new National Library will not be built, Zlamalova writes. The attempt at building it has ended in a preposterous and embarrassing way.
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DNA Analysis Exposes Fake Schiller Skull ... they even do not deign to tell their reasons, she adds. The political elite has wasted a chance of bequeathing a modern, excellent architecture, a landmark for future generations. Prague is a wonderful ancient city. Its charm is born out of what every generation has added to it. If it were only composed of Gothic buildings, without the Baroque palaces, Cubist and functionalist houses, it would not be so attractive, Zlamalova writes. Unfortunately, the post-Communist generation has not contributed with anything valuable to its architecture. The chance has been wasted, she adds. Kaplicky's project defeated 50 rivals in the architectonic competition, but it was eventually defeated by amateurishness and sloppiness, Martin Rumler writes in Mlada fronta Dnes. The real culprits are not the architects who questioned Kaplicky's victory. Nor President Vaclav Klaus and the officials from the Prague branch of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) who were unable to digest the unusual design, Rumler writes. The real bad hero is called Vlastimil Jezek, the director of the current National Library, he adds. Intoxicated by the victorious proposal, he proved a managerial failure. It was his incompetence that buried the whole project, Rumler writes. The establishment wants to efface the national memory, Jan Keller writes about the planned U.S. radar base in the Czech Republic in Pravo. When the Czech Republic entered NATO in March 1999, everyone used to say that Czech freedom and sovereignty are finally fully guaranteed. When the fifth anniversary of Czech membership of NATO was celebrated, the freedom and sovereignty were highlighted again, Keller writes. Now it is obvious that the establishment was telling lies all the time. Czechs are to be allegedly free and sovereign only with the tiny base with the tiny radar. One can only guess how the current establishment will widen Czech freedom in five years. One tiny base will certainly not be sufficient for the protection of Czech sovereignty, Keller concludes, full of irony.
(Ceske Noviny)
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