Urban conservation area Nový Jičín [ Městská památková rezervace ]
The town Nový Jičín rose on "the green turf" in the 2nd half of the 13th century, when it was founded on the crossroad of important business roads. Its oldest part and pride is regular quadrate square, that belongs with its axiality to the peaks of mediaeval town urbanism in our country.
The town grew rich through the sale of beer and wine and among his oldest monuments belongs most of cellar vaults, located under the rich taproom houses in the square. The really oldest monument of the town is however the Gothic castle of the lords of Kravaře, built in the end of the 14th century. On its place grew during the 15th and 16th century comfortable Renaissance castle, hiding in itself a small town citadel, built in the age of Turkish danger. The Renaissance period influenced an appearance of facades and interiors of houses in the square. Since the 2nd half of the 16th century a building of famous arcades of Nový Jičín was started and the most valuable city house in the square dates back to the year 1563 - so-called Old post office, built by unknown Italian master-builders in the style of Tuscan Renaissance.
The Baroque interfered in an important way in the appearance of the town: a peaceful skyline of the town got in this period unoverlookable dominant in the guise of Baroque Church of the Assumption of the Virgin with a tower and a succession of the facades in the square dates back to this period. A plaque column with the statue of the Virgin from 1710 became an imaginary centre. In the Nový Jičín square however styles of another centuries near to each other are wedded in a noteworthy way: classicism, Empire style and new-historical styles: hardly any visiter dreams of the fact, that the rococo facade of the pharmacy At the White Angel dates back to the year 1913.
An axtraordinary concentration of historical valueble buildings and urbanistic value of the town centre of Nový Jičín lead in 1967 to its declaration to be a urban conservation area, which is annually visited by a big amount of tourists.
A long-range attention is in Nový Jičín directed to complex redevelopment of all the old houses, public buildings and spaces, and thus with great demands made on a way of work and using of historical building materials and progresses.
The town Nový Jičín is holder of the Prize for the best preparation and realisation of the Program of regeneration of urban reservation areas and urban reservation zones for the year 2001.
