This publication looks back at the industrial heritage buildings and sites in the Czech Republic that were irreversibly destroyed in the years between 1999 and 2009 and buildings that are currently at immediate risk. It was published by the Research Centre for Industrial Heritage in cooperation and with the financial support of  the Monuments Committee of the Czech Chamber of Certified Engineers and Technicians and the Czech Union of Civil Engineers.

The book is based on information in the VCPD’s Industrial Heritage Register, on documentation available from archives, literature searches in the contemporary and modern press, consultations with metropolitan and local authorities, contacts with demolition companies, and important assistance in its preparation was provided by local heritage offices and museum staff, experts on the past of different sectors, with significant input also provided by industrial history enthusiasts. The authors concentrated on information on those sectors in which structures have in recent years been vanishing at an alarming pace, without any basic documentation of them having been made.

Benjamin Fragner – Jan Zikmund (edd.), What We Destroyed (Ourselves). Taking Stock of the Vanishing Industrial Age / Ten Years, Prague 2009.

144 pages; Czech, English introduction; 274 images; ISBN 978-80-01-04387-5 / contributing editorial work Vladislava Valchářová, Lukáš Beran, Pavel Jákl, Daniel Froněk / translation Robin Cassling / proofreading Olga Groszová, Marie Forejtová / graphic design Jan Forejt / typesetting and print Studio Element / published by the Research Centre for Industrial Heritage CTU Prague in conjunction with the Technical Monuments Committee of the Czech Chamber of Certified Engineers and Technicians and the Czech Union of Civil Engineers

The publication was launched at the International Biennial Vestiges of Industry 2009 and with it an exhibition of the same name opened in the previously inaccessible spaces of the Old Sewage Treatment Plant in Prague-Bubeneč which ran from 19 September to 18 October 2009. The exhibition was prepared by Benjamin Fragner, Jan Zikmund, Gabriel Fragner, Martin Holota and Lenka Dolanová.

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