Architects to Architects (in the competition for the revitalization of Štvanice Island)

The architectural competition concluded with the jury's statement that none of the eighty proposals reached a level worthy of a first prize. Some architects from the jury supplemented this decision with visions of their own solutions. Someone else should probably write this, but I believe that just as the competitors accept the competition rules, including the acceptance of the jury, the juror accepts his role to seek solutions within the competition proposals. From this perspective, the protocol text of the competition is curious, as the jurors – architects design and propose their own solutions.

The architectural competition and its adjudication ended with a political decision – a political decision by the architects in the jury – to do little, or nothing for now, while simultaneously under this decision (within the highest-rated competition proposal) keeping the option to do anything in the future. In such a case, the architectural competition loses its purpose. The jury's decision is confusing and unreliable. It does not correspond to the assignment of the first, and primarily the second, round of the competition. It does not align with the ambitions, potential, and needs of the city. If an architectural competition is announced, architectural decision-making should remain part of the process. Political decisions should come before the competition, or they can come after, based on the architectural offering.

The competition and judging process were accompanied by unacceptable phenomena, such as lobbying within the jury for the placement of the concert hall, a six-month delay in announcing the competition results, the secretary's inability to prevent and address legislative problems, the discrediting of the work and authors of the competition proposals by damaging originals and dumping them, as well as the misuse of information about the competition in the professional environment accessible to architects close to the jury. The Czech Chamber of Architects objected to some of these phenomena – in an aloof manner. It did not address their impacts but rather trivialized the situation by questioning published facts that were supposed to motivate a rapid conclusion of the competition. False claims about duplicate prints and the preservation of original prints were further surpassed by displaying copies presented as genuine during the presentation of the competition results. In other professional environments, this would be considered a criminal act.

This text should have been written by someone else, preferably an officer of the Czech Chamber of Architects responsible for architectural competitions. Or it should have been written by one of the mediators of the architectural environment who usually comment on everything. A layperson or politician may not be aware of all professional contexts. There were enough architects in the jury. The role played by the Czech Chamber of Architects is on the verge of questioning its very existence. The claim that nothing more could be done is refuted by my personal experience when during a two-minute phone call with the City Hall, I arranged for a truthful and more accurate presentation of graphically devalued proposals for a public exhibition (at no cost, just by proper labeling). I do not share the opinions that such criticism could harm the future of architectural competitions. If there are to be further such "architectural competitions," the rules and evaluation criteria should be changed (adoration of the jury, space left for the jury to self-realize, frequency of proposed variants by a single competition participant, etc.). I am aware of competitions that were lobbied, inappropriate, competitions with results that leave one puzzled,... but I have not yet heard of an architectural competition where the jury became the winner.