The Liberec Region will contribute to the restoration of the unique hop dryer in Dubá

Liberec/Dubá - The Liberec Region wants to contribute to the restoration of the unique hop dryer in Dubá in the Českolipsko region. The local council plans to renovate the technical monument and transform it into a museum and community center. For the project, whose total costs, including drainage, are estimated to exceed 21 million crowns, the city is applying for a grant from the Ministry of Culture's Program for the Rescue of Architectural Heritage. The Liberec Region is ready to support the project with one million crowns, said the regional councilor for culture, Květa Vinklátová (Mayors for Liberec Region), to journalists today.

"We would like to support similar projects within the region where the municipality or owner has a clear vision for their further use," Vinklátová said. The grant in Dubá will not only contribute to the rescue of a technical monument that is unique in the region but will also support its further use. Similarly, the council plans to contribute one million crowns from the surplus of last year's tax revenues for the reconstruction of the roof of the castle in Stvolínky in the Českolipsko region. "However, the plan must still be approved by the representatives," she added.

The hop dryer with two drying towers is an important monument that recalls the times when hops were grown around Dubá. The oldest written evidence of the existence of the hop dryer and hop kiln on the southern edge of the town dates back to 1877. At the peak of hop cultivation in the area, there were six similar dryers and kilns in Dubá, but only one has been preserved in practically its original condition, even though after World War II the building served as a warehouse and later the state farm raised chickens there.

Dubá is not the only monument. Dubá is a municipal heritage zone with approximately 90 protected heritage sites, including agricultural farms, urban and rural houses, as well as, for example, a relief carved into a rock mass or a complex of rock cellars. The dryer building has been a protected monument since 1958. According to heritage specialists, its circular shape of the drying towers is particularly unique and not common in Bohemia. Similar structures occur more frequently in England. To this day, not only the building part of the dryer has been preserved, but also relics of hop drying technologies.

"The interior with wooden carved structures is such a defining and strong element that it was important not to disrupt it too much and to support the simple spatial play of the floors, which hover between the walls and the roof. This corresponds to the proposed division of the internal spaces. In the southern part's ground floor, we would like to place a permanent exhibition of the local region's museum. The other two floors can be used for one-time art exhibitions," described the future use of the building Mayor Zdeňka Šepsová (IND). In two small rooms at the southern wall, the project includes toilets and facilities for selling refreshments in a summer buffet, respectively during social events. Work on the restoration of the monument is expected to begin later this year with its drainage.