<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <meta charset="UTF-8"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0"> <title>Open Letter to the Director of NPÚ Regarding the "SH BEČOV – EXEMPLARY RESTORATION OF THE CASTLE AND ADJACENT OBJECTS" Competition</title> </head> <body> <h1>Open Letter to the Director of NPÚ Regarding the "SH BEČOV – EXEMPLARY RESTORATION OF THE CASTLE AND ADJACENT OBJECTS" Competition</h1> </body> </html>

Publisher
Tisková zpráva
25.06.2013 19:50

Dear Director,

We are reaching out to you as participants in the recent competition for Bečov. Like most architects, we consider the selection of designers through a public architectural competition to be a very good solution. This method is particularly suitable for significant and complex tasks, including the regeneration of historically valuable buildings. Therefore, we were very pleased with the announcement of the architectural competition "SH BEČOV – EXEMPLARY RESTORATION OF THE CASTLE AND ADJACENT BUILDINGS" and will be very pleased if the National Heritage Institute continues to seek architects in this open manner that is best able to find quality.

However, we must state that the way the competition was conducted and how it turned out represents a deep disappointment for us. We have reservations about the course of the competition that we want to communicate to the National Heritage Institute. We believe that the selection of architects for the restoration of monuments should already be exemplary. We do not consider the preparation of the competition to be of sufficient quality. The assignment was confusing and ambiguous in many respects, and additional information arriving until the last week further complicated the situation. The competition was burdened from the beginning by unnecessary administration, which surely discouraged many potential participants from entering. Currently, architectural competitions for larger investment designs are being held, and all the administration follows a simple scheme developed by the Czech Chamber of Architects. The administration of the competition is then managed by one employee of the organizer, and there is no need to costly hire an external law firm, which instead complicates communication with its long and complicated statements.

Sixteen teams participated in the competition, and ultimately 7 were disqualified. Typically, in competitions with a similar number of applicants, only one participant is eliminated. Disqualifications primarily occurred due to breaches of anonymity in the data on the CD, which serves only for the subsequent publication of already disclosed designs, and therefore it can be very easily prevented by keeping the CD with the competition administrator until the announcement of results. Additionally, the conditions for the competition described the placement of this CD ambiguously. Exceeding the construction budget (including VAT) was also stated as a reason for disqualification. The budget in the competition stage is very approximate, and moreover, the inclusion of VAT into the final price is stated differently in several places in the conditions. That such a setting of criteria was unfortunate and that the organizer could lose significantly due to it was confirmed by the preliminary disqualification of one of the most successful designs (House and City), as well as the additional disqualification of the originally best-rated participant (studio MCA). Furthermore, proposal No. 12 (Masák & partner) showed the same error in price (design costs, surveys, and author's supervision were not included) as both disqualified proposals and still remained - even among the rewarded proposals. The disqualification of the originally winning proposal was not recommended by the Czech Chamber of Architects, even though it was disqualified for failing to meet conditions that the CKA approved. Overall, therefore, the errors of the administrator in the tender documentation, inconsistent application of competition conditions by the jury, and somewhat schizophrenic statement of the CKA devalued the work of essentially all participants in the competition, as none of us can consider the final evaluation to be entirely objective.

Upon detailed examination, it would likely be possible to find some error in almost everyone, which is why it is necessary to highlight the decision of studio MCA, which waived further steps so that the restoration project could be realized at all.

We believe that the National Heritage Institute also sees shortcomings in the completed competition, which was ultimately decided not by the quality of ideas but by the quantity and perseverance of argumentation. It is a shame, but we hope that this case has opened an era when architects will be sought for the revitalization of monuments in design competitions that will truly be exemplary, from which the organizer will gain the best and participants will not have doubts about the purpose of the entire competition. We would consider the publication of our letter in the competition catalog to be a welcoming step and a contribution to the discussion about architectural competition in our space.

Sincerely,
Daniel Kříž and Michal Sullo (proposal No. 13 - disqualified for breach of anonymity on the CD)
Oleg Haman (proposal No. 11 - not disqualified)
Jiří Hůrka (proposal No. 7 - disqualified for exceeding the budget after including VAT)
Jaroslav Beneš and Jan Svoboda (proposal No. 3 – not disqualified)
Ing.arch. Ivan Březina, Ing. arch. Martin Březina, Ing. arch. Václav Matějka,
Ing. arch. Eva Šarochová, Ing. arch. Jan Bauer (proposal No. 10 - disqualified for breach of anonymity on the CD)
Tomáš Bernášek (proposal No. 2 - not disqualified)

The English translation is powered by AI tool. Switch to Czech to view the original text source.

2 comments

add comment

Subject

Author

Date

Martin Rosa

25.06.13 11:49

rozpory

David Mikulášek

26.06.13 04:03

show all comments

0 24.01.2022 | From the Bečov fortress, a representative castle will again arise