Round Table IV: Architectural Competitions

1. PROLOG

Vendula Hnídková: The organization of architectural competitions is associated with the effort to achieve the best ideas, the most accurate concepts, and solutions to the given problem. It would seem that this mechanism must necessarily be advantageous for both parties involved: the investor and the architectural community. The prevailing reality, however, speaks rather to the contrary.
The positive impact of competitions on establishing emerging architects or new studios is often mentioned. Recently, it was prominently stated in Prague during the presentation of the Austrian studio Caramel, which unequivocally attributed its founding and initial survival to victories in competitions.
Competitions provide architects with stimuli outside of their daily routine. They refine the search, confront individual approaches, and as a result, they can have a positive impact on the level of the entire field. It is no coincidence that the education in school studios often takes on the character of an architectural competition, where students are subjected to final comparisons of their works.
Nevertheless, competitions can also have a wider social dimension. František Lýdie Gahura became the initiator of competitions in Zlín during World War II, rather fictional architectural contests aimed at providing financial support to architects during a time of radically restricted construction activities. In 1940, architects such as Josef Gočár, Kamil Roškot, Otto Rothmayer, Jan Sokol, Josef Štěpánek, or even the architect of German nationality, Josef Zasche, were invited to participate in the competition for the Catholic parish church and the Tomáš Baťa Memorial in Zlín.
Nevertheless, for a basic illustration of the issues surrounding competitions, I cannot refrain from one provocatively heretical comparison that currently offers an unexpected parallel. The two comparable events are separated by over 150 years. All the more significant is their testimonial value in relation to the local tradition of architectural competitions.
From 1852 to 1854, preparations were underway for announcing a competition for the construction of the National Theatre. The question remained whether to limit the competition to local creators or open it completely to all architects. František Palacký unequivocally expressed his stance on this dilemma by demanding an open competition and public evaluation for a building funded by public financial resources. The competition closed in 1854, and the jury presumably did not award the first prize due to cost-cutting measures.
In 1862, another limited competition took place, which ended with somewhat bitter failure, as the number of jury members far exceeded the number of submitted entries (a total of 2). The failure was caused by the absence of any binding program, and the winning design was intended to define the very idea of the National Theatre. Subsequently, the construction committee of the Czech National Theatre sought a proposal from just one architect, Josef Zítek, who had just gained international renown for the construction of the museum in Weimar and, coincidentally, had settled in Prague just a few months earlier, in December 1865. The connections he had gained in Germany seemed to be a determining criterion for his being valued in Prague. The representatives of the committee approached Zítek directly, which, however, caused discontent among his colleagues, and two other architects, Josef Niklas and Ignác Ullmann, submitted their proposals. No competition was announced this time, and an exclusive expert opinion from foreign experts was supposed to serve as a guarantee of fair judgment. A pair of prominent Viennese architects, Eduard van der Nüll and August Siccard von Siccardsburg, were approached for the role of independent jurors, among whom Zítek had studied at the Vienna Academy and in whose studio he had subsequently been employed. The expert evaluation clearly favored their former student and employee. Despite the expiration of the time limit, Niklas and Ullmann submitted their contributions, while members of the committee personally visited Zítek's studio to view his proposal. The projects were subsequently displayed at the Old Town Hall, and the recommendations of the Viennese architects were fully published in the National Papers. This fulfilled the requirement for transparency. Zítek was the winner from the start.
Despite significant legislative clarifications of the statutes and rules since the Gründer era of building the National Theatre, numerous connections with last year's major architectural case can be surprising. Many anticipated a more transparent process in the international competition for the National Library, guaranteed by an independent jury. It turned out that even an international jury could be composed such that it remained biased.
Architectural competitions push the boundaries of architectural thinking. They provide optimal solutions tailored to the purpose, the client, and their financial capabilities. Nevertheless, the statistics on competitions are ruthless. In 2007, over 18,000 buildings were completed in the Czech Republic. At the same time, according to the ČKA website, where competition results are announced, only 18 of them took place during the same period, including competition exhibitions.
So here arises the first question. Do you think there are currently enough or too few competitions?

Dalibor Borák: There are definitely far fewer competitions than there should be and than would be useful to organize. It is a reflection of the state of society.

Jiří Plos: It is certainly too few, but on the other hand, this number is not sufficiently informative because there are a whole series of contests that are on the edge of legality; there are many more of those, I would even say that it could range in the hundreds, where competitions are officially replaced by some contest that has the nature of a competition, but is not legal.

Miroslav Masák: So that we don't say the same thing ten times… what has been said has been said, it's hard to add anything to that, just that there are also selection procedures, which are a certain form of competition, even if not in the form we would like.

Ivo Koukol: This imbalance is somewhat apparent because for the vast majority of buildings, it is actually not possible to announce an architectural competition, as it loses its purpose in those cases. I mean the number of technical buildings and modifications that are subsequently passed for approval, and thus we have them included in the stated sum.

Igor Kovačavić: To avoid repeating myself, there aren't just few competitions; there are extremely few. Moreover, I did a statistic showing that as the volume of billions in construction increases, the number of competitions decreases every year, and the year 2007 is surprising in that the number of competitions leaped to the stated number of 18, but there I also tracked one paradox, that in the last four years, the award or the first prize has been decreasing each year. Thus, another paradox occurs where we increase the number but worsen the quality by not covering the basic costs for those who win the competition.

Pavel Nasadil: I think there are still not enough competitions, but there are definitely a bit more than there were in the 90s; it's just that we hear less and less about them.

Tomáš Hradečný: I would completely disagree with the idea that there are fewer than in the 90s. Perhaps just a note that it would be interesting to track in that statistic how many competitions were also labeled as irregular on the official chamber websites. There are quite a few of those as well.

Zdeněk Jiran: Competitions have decreased; I also disagree; there are many fewer than there were in the 90s, and it reflects the fact that, for instance, municipalities assign far fewer projects through competitions and distrust the institution of architectural competitions, preferring invited competitions rather than opening up to more opinions. They are fewer.

---

> continuation: 2. The Purpose of Architectural Competitions