The Gardens Committee

Impressed by the neediness of the Osek facilities, a steadily growing number of experts and laypeople from the Czech Republic and Germany have joined together to support Abbot Bernhard Thebes in saving the gardens.

With the Gardens Committee, an unconventional instrument was formed in 2003 to organize ideas, develop strategies and promote projects. The current work is concentrated in three main areas:

the first task is to ensure that the gardens of Osek finally receive the attention that they deserve. For this, the gardens must be introduced to a broader public - regional as well as international, interested laypeople as well as experts. This also includes building up important contacts with regional authorities, politicians, the National Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage, scientific institutions and private partners.

The second task of our work is the organization and realization of small, short-term projects that show clear, visible, timely success. Our collaborative work with the German-Czech Fund for the Future has proven to be very fruitful; in 2000, they supported a project of the Technical University of Berlin and the Mendel University of Brno to document the historic gardens and also made this brochure possible.

The effective support of the District Office of Annaberg has also been noteworthy; they contribute to numerous cross-border projects in the Ore Mountains region, including those that have been implemented in Osek monastery. At the same time, students and teachers of the vocational school of Annaberg have carried out indispensable on the ground projects in the monastery.

Beyond this, the Gardens Committee is striving to develop a project framework that is transparent and effective in the long term. These are necessary prerequisites for making use of existing funding opportunities of the European Union, larger conservation and environmental foundations and the German-Czech support programs.

Only with such support can sustainable plans for use, restoration, and design be developed and the extensive rehabilitation of the gardens eventually be achieved.