Page 92 - UNESCO_Zatec_2021_A4

CONSTRUCTIONS ASSOCIATED WITH HOP PROCESSING integrating the residential function with the operation
The town of Žatec has been the centre of the entire hop of hop drying kilns, hop packaging rooms and hop
growing region since the Middle Ages, where all the warehouses. Hop processing buildings are brick, multi-
following processes connected with further processing, story, with a characteristic construction and typology.
conservation, certification, and trade in hops were To this day, most of the hop drying kilns and sulphuring
combined. The preserved urban-industrial set of hop buildings have been preserved, completed with tall and
constructions, their functional connection with the whole low chimneys. It is the tall chimneys for the extraction
procedure of processing, and trade had a fundamental of sulphur fumes during the sulphuring (conservation)
influence on the image of the town. of hops, as well as the original storage facilities, which
are often still used for their original purpose, are now
In the northern part of component part 02 in the historical an integral part of the colour of Žatec and complete
core of the town of Žatec, there are ten hop warehouses. its unique panorama. They are proof of its position as
Still, their largest concentration, including other a former and current metropolis of world hop growing,
processing censembles, is in the southern part of the an important centre of processing and trade in hops.
component part, the Prague Suburbs. The development
structure of the Prague Suburbs reflects its gradual growth. The facades of hop processing buildings in the Prague
It includes groups of industrial hop constructions, mainly Suburbs are brick. In the vast majority, they still have
from the 19 and 20 centuries, usually supplemented architecturally high-quality decoration. Few visitors to
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by residential buildings of individual owners of packing the town know that behind them hides a wooden skeleton
rooms and hop warehouses, which usually are located at and the technology of industrial spaces. The high quality
the street line in the town. The combination of industrial of the solution of the facades of hop warehouses is based
2. Description units gives this part of the nominated property a truly built-up area of the town, and the architectural designs
on the fact that they were built directly in the already
and residential functions within the individual ownership
of their facades had to meet the strict regulations of the
unique atmosphere of the business environment of the
town building council. The same regulations applied
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second half of the 19 century and the beginning of the
20 century. The buildings, with their composition and
to the construction of residential townhouses. The
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the nature of the facade design, still demonstrate how
of independent functional units, both magnificent
individual hop processing family businesses created new respect of these regulations enabled the construction
building units according to their financial possibilities, residential houses and simpler utility buildings.
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The former Epstein & Mendl’s hop warehouse and baling room, No. 1257, with the residential building, No. 753, in Kovářská Street, Žatec, 2016