Jěštěd in a cage - jury's evaluation

Irena Fialová, Golden Ratio

The Liberec school is such a small miracle that Jiří Suchomel has brought to a quality that can confidently compete with Prague and Brno through his incredible energy and perseverance. I would even say that the average quality of Liberec projects today exceeds the average quality of Prague ones... It is so balanced that we were unable to recognize the best studio; the boundaries between studios blurred. We were only able to identify a few somewhat problematic tasks, such as the design of a dog house, lighting, and public toilets, approached as if design were some "simple architecture" rather than a specific field. Our hesitation was also sparked by the project of a huge hotel in a protected area near the Souš reservoir, a real assignment from the investor. Intergenerationally, we debated in the jury whether an architect should or should not accept such an assignment; personally, I think it is impossible not to accept an assignment, but the architect must simply find a solution that is in scale with the place and does not harm the landscape. And none of the students succeeded in this... In the end, we agreed on about 15 best projects from more than 150 exhibited, of which 8 proceeded to the finals after voting. None of them stood out enough to win a single main prize, and so we ultimately awarded four prizes - for a house, design, urbanism, and experiment... Personally, I would like to highlight the project Oostende-east by Tereza Naarova, a completely professionally resolved large and very complex area, excellently documented with visualizations, plans, diagrams, a model, and a brochure. Those who engage in urbanism know how difficult it is to create and document a good public space and think about things that do not have a clear shape but are at the essence of the city and society... In any case, I want to thank the students for the kind invitation. It was a great experience, and I wish them a lot of luck and energy for the coming years!

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Jakub Fišer, Aulík Fišer architects

I was at the FA in Liberec for the first time... I was surprised by the relatively consistent level of presentations of the studios - the contrasts in quality from Prague did not occur. There are no "stars," but there are no pronounced failures either... What significantly distinguishes the studios are the variations due to the assignments - why lamps, why dog houses for freshmen? Design is not simpler architecture; design is simply not architecture.... and some major themes then confirmed that fulfilling a poor intention will never result in a good house - nor a good school project...

Examples of sensitive work with the landscape and place, concepts searching for new ways of development of buildings or new meanings of the place stood out. I liked the analyses and proposed concepts for the development of Nové Heřminovy. It's a pity that they could not be convincingly transferred into a specific proposal...

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Prokop Tomášek, A69 - architects

— unlike experiences at other schools with similar jury evaluations, I was pleasantly surprised by the comparably “good” level of the submitted work.

— I might expect a greater “characterizability” of the individual studios. ... perhaps this is due to working in a common hall space, where “ideas float in the same air.”
— the jury had a heated debate about the quality of the individual project assignments... here it is probably essential to realize what the faculty's task is?... whether to prepare students for contact with reality or to evoke the feeling that an architect is a being who should save the world. Personally, I find the assignment of a hotel in Souš to be a completely correct preparation for practice. (including from the perspective of the context of unreasonable capacity requirements).
— many interesting projects may have suffered from awkward presentations. … often I missed the situation of broader relationships, outlining the context … many times such an analysis would help in creating a concept … (e.g., the capacity of the hotel in Souš in relation to the surrounding buildings)
— for the students, a walk of the jury among the individual projects in the presence of the authors would certainly be beneficial…. perhaps just for the finalists.
— another thing to consider is the number of hedgehogs in the cage.
— the existence of some rules, categorization, etc. would certainly facilitate the work of the jury.
— it is almost impossible to correctly compare design and urbanism… they are simply different disciplines. Another issue is the disadvantage of lower years in evaluation.