ČKA: From the architects' perspective, the competition for the RFE/RL monument was irregular

Prague - The competition for a monument in front of the new Prague headquarters of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) was problematic according to the Czech Chamber of Architects. "As an architectural competition, it would undoubtedly be judged as irregular," Jiří Plos from the Czech Chamber of Architects told ČTK. The competition was announced last summer and the organizer was supposed to announce the results in September. However, this May, it was announced that none of the 80 proposals were selected.
The station informed the competition participants of its decision via email, which some of them, along with the organizers' approach throughout the competition, consider disrespectful. "I wouldn't expect such behavior from this organization. We never knew the composition of the jury. Everyone invested a lot of money in developing their proposals, and they won't even respond to us with a letter, only via email," said sculptor Vojtěch Míča to ČTK.
"A committee made up of station employees selected 13 finalists and presented their works to a panel of advisors, which included curators from major modern art museums," Anna Šišková from RFE/RL told ČTK. According to Šišková, information about the project's development was regularly posted on the station's website.
Šišková also points to that part of the Call for Submitting Artistic Proposals which states that "the responsibility for all costs related to the creation and submission of the proposal lies with the artist".
One of the main reasons why the competition was not conducted properly, according to Plos, is the missing provision regarding prizes for the projects. "There is absolutely no humanitarian, social, or similarly significant reason for which prizes should not be awarded to the participants of the competition, and why work should be required for free," he said.
Other aspects of the competition that, according to Plos, indicate its irregularity include the composition of the jury and provisions allowing the competition to be canceled. The contest organizer can agree or disagree with the jury's results and can decide whether to spend the money, even if it comes from public funds, on the selected works.
In this case, however, the jury was anonymous, which, according to Plos, is also contrary to the standards of such competitions. A condition for the regularity of the competition is a proportional representation of persons independent of the organizer and persons professionally competent to evaluate the proposal.
The provisions in the competition assignment that allow the competition to be canceled and the work not to be commissioned are, according to Plos, in combination with the missing prizes, a contempt for intellectual work. "It is all the more shocking that the employees of RFE/RL themselves are creative workers," he stated.
The installation of the monument was planned for this May when the competition was announced. The completion of the building in Hagibor, where the station will be moving from the former Federal Assembly building in downtown Prague, is scheduled for the end of this year. From its current headquarters, the station can broadcast until the end of March 2009.
The consideration of relocating the radio began after the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. Prague and the Czech Republic searched for a new location for a long time, and construction in Hagibor began in October 2006.