We, the volunteers of Zauhlovačka, are trying to save an architectural monument that no one has a use for. This monument was built during the First World War as part of a world-famous carpet factory. When coal was no longer used for energy production, the tower, which we call „Zauhlovačka“, lost its purpose, and together with the collapse of the factory, the tower began to decay. Jitka Jakubičková noticed this tower already during her art studies and in 2014 decided to stand up for its rescue. In 2015, the tower was registered as an architecturally protected building, and in the same year, an association of volunteers was established, who are still advocating for its preservation and fame. Today, we are a total of four volunteers who have been spreading awareness and the historical significance of the tower, whose architect was the famous Leopold Bauer, for seven years. We wrote dozens of articles, spoke in many reports on radio and television, and even built a separate and unique workshop for the tower, where we save small furniture that people have thrown away. Our endeavor is to restore the past glory of the historically significant story of carpets that conquered the world. An integral part of this story is an architectural gem that would continue to disintegrate if we did not give it a new future. We sincerely hope that our efforts will inspire hundreds of other volunteers around the world. Thank you for your support.

There are people around the world who like to visit abandoned buildings and decaying factories. One of them is Jitka Jakubičková, leader of the AvantgArt volunteer association. Jitka has long been interested in the spaces of industrial buildings, which have lost their purpose and have often been abandoned so spontaneously that many artefacts remain, reminding of their past glory. One of these monuments of the past is the coaling and water tower in Vratislavice nad Nisou. It had been decaying for decades within sight of Jitka´s home, so one day she decided to save it from its sad future. Jitka studied pedagogy and art. During her studies, she met many interesting artists who were intrinsically connected to the region of glass and jewelry. However, she worried about the fact that interest in traditional crafts was declining. That people just need to go to the store and buy semi-finished furniture from the far north. That bread and milk cannot be bought anywhere but in multinational supermarket chains. That meeting places exist only in multiplexes and pubs. In 2015, Jitka founded the association of volunteers called AvantgArt, z. s., which is still advocating for the preservation of the water and coal tower we now call Zauhlovačka. The idea of the whole project is to turn significant cultural monument into a place for meeting, art and entertainment. Jitka believes that it is not possible to simply reconstruct the monument and delay its devastation. The building as such must live. And so Jitka decided that, despite her family and work commitments, she would dedicate a huge part of her free time to saving a historical monument. The end of 2015 was marked by the declaration of the tower as a cultural monument and the founding of the association. The volunteers also invested a large part of their free time in mapping the historical significance of the formerly known carpet factory called Bytex, which supplied its products all over the world. The owners of the site which closed more than 40 years ago have agreed to a plan to save the tower and supported Jitka´s actions. And so there was nothing left but to involve other people in the project. Jitka knows from experience that finding competent and reliable people is more difficult than renovating Zauhlovačka. Bringing in a husband who is very skilled and technically gifted was an obvious decision. Jitka´s brother Mirek became the third member of the association, who works as a cameraman in his company and in connection with Zauhlovačka is in charge of media contact and all video and photo documentation. The fourth member of the volunteer association is Kateřina, who is a capable assistant in administration and organizing public events at the tower. At the beginning of 2016, the AvantgArt association was active only on social networks. And it was on Facebook that he found the first volunteers who joined in cleaning the tower, which was full of dangerous waste and debris. The wave of interest quickly spread and the association's efforts to save the tower appeared in newspapers, magazines and television programs. People were simply intrigued by the fact that 4 ordinary people, who have jobs and families, volunteer to clean a building that does not belong to them in their spare time. The cleaning of Zauhlovačka became an almost regular event, where people of various ages and fields of activity gathered building a new community withing the region. Many volunteers also supported the association from outside, for example by cooking soup to warm up the cleaning students. The important thing is that these actions are still ongoing. Our goal is to create a unique cultural and artistic center here, which will live not only with exhibitions, openings and other cultural events, but also with entertainment for everyone. We are constantly developing the whole concept. But what we do know for sure is that we would also like to return the tower to one of its original purposes. It was to serve not only as a coal and water reservoir for the neighboring boiler house. In the original plans, it was also intended to use the top floor as an observation tower. During the cleaning work inside the tower, we came across many problems that we are still solving today. One of them was the storage of tools for partial repairs in the tower. That is why the first Zauhlovačky Workshop was established in 2018. From this workshop, a reuse center was gradually created, in which we organize small furniture repair courses as volunteers. People can bring here unwanted furniture, which we restore and provide for further use. And so the tower also got its ecological dimension. However, we are most pleased with the interest of the community, which has expanded so much in eight years that we managed to connect with a similarly focused project in nearby Germany as part of cross-border cooperation. The tower and our efforts were thus published not only in Czech but also in German, for which we are grateful. Our long-term effort is to gradually build awareness of a significant historic building, its purpose, the community it now unites and the ecological superstructure that is part of it. As volunteers, we are not entitled to a salary, so our efforts often run into a lack of funding, which is needed for virtually every aspect of our work at the tower. It is for this reason that we are asking for support at the level of European heritage, which the tower undoubtedly is. Thank you for considering your support for our efforts to bring the tower to life. Jitka Jakubičková +420702019360 avantgart@email.cz www.zauhlovacka.cz www.dilnazauhlovacky.cz For communication in english: Miroslav Prousek +420777184610

We, Zauhlovačka volunteers, understand European heritage as a struggle to save historically important buildings that have lost their purpose as part of the development of society, but still carry important elements of historical contexts that preserve the memory of individual nations that are an integral part of Europe as such. Part of our hard-built community are personalities who are not indifferent to the environment in which they live. And it is precisely for this community that its long-term sustainability is key, on the basis of which we are building a reuse center, which is part of our rescue of the historic tower building. Cross-border cooperation strengthens our activities at the pan-European level. To date, we have visited similar communities in Norway and East Germany as part of the project. Thanks to communication with the leading representatives of our region, as well as associations abroad that advocate for similar goals as ours in Vratislavice, we were able to gain important contacts to spread awareness of our efforts. And this would not be possible without our activity and the possibilities offered by broad cooperation at the European level, which we are open to and welcome as a possibility that needs to be developed in specific aspects of our work, not only at the voluntary level.