Up to three hundred authors could apply for the library competition

Prague - According to a representative of the International Union of Architects (UIA), up to three hundred architects could participate in the competition for the construction of a new building for the National Library of the Czech Republic (NK). German architect Wolfgang Tochtermann, director of the commission for international competitions at UIA, said this to ČTK today. He participated in a meeting in Prague with representatives of the library and toured the site for the building in Letná near Špejchar. In the coming weeks, the union should add the necessary stamp to the documents for announcing the competition, and for the first time in the history of the Czech Republic, the NK will announce a competition according to the rules of the International Union of Architects.
"The organization of the competition is very important, the national library has great significance in every country. The building and the competition will definitely receive a significant response on an international scale, and based on my experience, I expect a large number of participants," said Tochtermann. He believes that over 300 architects from around the world could participate in the competition. According to him, competitions announced by the UIA are usually undertaken by the best architects.
UIA must approve every competition announced under its rules. The largest event similar to the one that the NK will announce was, according to Tochtermann, the competition for the construction of the new Alexandria Library in the last ten years. Over 600 proposals were submitted; the library was built by the Norwegian studio Snoheta. The construction of the library cost 200 million dollars (then about 6.3 billion crowns), with funding coming from across the Arab world, and it was opened in the fall of 2002.
However, an even larger event was the competition for the construction of a new Egyptological museum, which attracted 2,500 participants from 105 countries, with two dozen teams representing the Czech Republic, including Roubík.
Authors who have already completed a construction project for cultural purposes worth at least 20 million euros will be able to submit their designs for the new NK building in Prague. Tochtermann expects the results to be announced in the spring of 2007.
Every new building in Prague must also address its integration into the historical context. "There is always a problem of how to integrate a modern building into a historical city. I think modern buildings could penetrate the older construction, but the problem is not in the modern-non-modern dimension, it is always a problem of proportion," thinks the architect. "The author must be able to take into account what existed before, not to destroy it for the future shape of the city. All cities have had to deal with this throughout their history, and not always successfully. Prague is a good example of many styles and periods that form a single whole," he said.
A representative of UNESCO will therefore also sit on the jury. The chairperson of the jury will be the prominent British architect of Iraqi origin, Zaha Hadid. The competition will be open, and the announcer will not be inviting anyone personally. However, the NK will inform eight architects by letter that the competition is taking place. Among them will be the world-renowned author of Czech origin, Jan Kaplický.
The chosen location in Letná is, according to Tochtermann, good in several respects. It is situated at the edge of the historic part of the city, in contact with the park, and its surroundings include Prague Castle. "The library could be an important start for the development of this part of the city. We do not yet know how it will look, but it will certainly have a significant influence on the surroundings," he concluded.