Publisher of Staletá Praha – Professional Profile

National Heritage Institute

The objectives and activities of the National Heritage Institute (Národní památkový ústav, or NPÚ) include, but are not limited to, the following:

coordinating and (mostly through its own professional capacities) ensuring basic and applied scientific research in order to improve the quality of the scientific knowledge of cultural heritage as well as to develop the theory, methodology, and practice of the field of heritage preservation;

conducting operative and standard building historical surveys, archaeological research, operative documentation, urban surveys, and archival surveys; in doing so, it focuses primarily on the exploration and rescue documentation of heritage properties threatened with either extinction or significant reductions in their historical, artistic, and architectural values;

elaborating archaeological research, heritage surveys, and analyses of heritage protected areas with the objective of deepening the knowledge of the history of the areas and their heritage values;

collecting and evaluating knowledge, experience, and information about historical and modern technologies and materials for the repair and restoration of cultural heritage properties;

in order to increase the level of professionalism and to achieve uniform quality standards, as well as the predictability of its own professional position, the NPÚ issues nationally recommended professional methodologies and methodological statements based on its own scientific research as well as that of cooperating scientific institutes and universities, all of which it continuously updates.