"We just knew that we didn't want the remediation plan, but we had absolutely no leads to follow. Now we were well aware that the post-revolutionary enthusiasm of certain people would not last forever, that in a year, two, or maybe three years it would fade away and that it was necessary to act very quickly. So what now? Making a new spatial plan is a five-year discussion process. That was impossible. To call for an architectural competition caused a fundamental problem, as the architects wanted to make themselves visible, to do something that will make them famous, and this thing needed a completely different way, humility to that historical legacy. And so, we came up with, that is, the people of Prague advised us, that we would do such a workshop, a creative workshop. Maybe five or six teams of three architects meet and each one expresses in their own unique way – by drawing, in words – what they imagine the neighbourhood should continue to look like. But the fundamental thing us that this kind of a format is absolutely non-competitive. Anyone can copy there. It is a form of brainstorming. That group was doing something, invented something, and now they came from the next group, and not that they hid it from them, as if they were competitors, but they discussed with them, and then they said that the other group agrees with it, and then they have such good idea, so they implemented it again. And that's how it worked, and it was absolutely brilliant."
"In 1971 or 1972, I don't know exactly, there were elections to, back then it wasn't called the Parliament, but the Chamber of Deputies (sic), and our sculpture teacher Miloš Axman also ran there. He was such a large-scale manufacturer of Lenins and here of those involved statues. And he was very unpleasant. We didn't like him, he was arrogant, he treated us very unpleasantly. Well, we saw that he was on the candidate list, so we decided that we would simply not vote for him. Today, it seems like a complete matter of course that I go behind the curtain and what I do there is my matter only. But back then, the act of hiding behind the curtain was almost considered an act against the state. Well, now that the management of the faculty or even the entire University of Technology found out about it, they started such an inconspicuous threat campaign. Not directly that we shouldn't vote, but do mind the consequences next time and something like that. Well, it seemed that we would finally go there united as one man and one woman. And finally, when we looked at the election results, it was 99.9 - the standard way. And if you consider that the University had 2,000 people at that time, there were just the two of us, me and one other colleague. Well, we thought that this was the end of us at the faculty, but absurdly it turned out to be exactly what the communists needed. The 100% would be conspicuous and we were the useful idiots for them.”
"On the second or third day, I heard that the Russians were coming from Brno, here along Novodvorská street. And so, our parents didn't even know about it, but I just wanted to see it with my own eyes. And I had the bad luck that they just met me when I was crossing the Novodvorský bridge heading to Nové dvory. […] And now the tanks were approaching, just full-bodied guys, bristling, machine guns, the river was five meters below me. Well, I seriously considered jumping into that water and breaking my arm or leg or something. In the end I did the most sensible thing - I pretended that I just didn't see them and kept going and somehow it worked out. But at the time I had a very uncomfortable feeling about it. There was nowhere to turn, it was a narrow sidewalk, thirty by forty centimetres. So that was the first meeting with them.“
Lubor Herzán was born on February 20, 1950 in Třebíč as a member of the seventh generation of architects or builders in Třebíč. He spent his childhood with his family in Třebíč and in Třešt with his grandparents. He graduated in 1968, when he strongly experienced the processes of the Prague Spring, and after graduation he entered the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Technology in Brno, majoring in architecture. After graduating from university, he joined Stavoprojekt in Jihlava and later moved to a housing cooperative in Třebíč. After the Velvet Revolution, he was elected to the Council of the District National Committee and took up the post of city architect in Třebíč. From 1999 to 2003, he worked to put the Jewish quarter in Třebíč on the list of UNESCO monuments, and in 2013 he wrote a book on the process. In 2021 he lived in Třebíč.
