ÚOHS rejected the complaint against the annulment of the competition for the Tugendhat villa

Brno - The Office for the Protection of Competition (ÚOHS) this week rejected the complaint of architects Jindřich Škrabal, Jan Sapák, and Ludvík Grym related to the Tugendhat villa. The architects challenged the cancellation of a six-year-old competition for the design of the heritage restoration of the villa. The city council canceled the competition last year. The architects disagreed, but the antitrust office dismissed their complaint against the decision. It did not violate the public procurement law, said Kamil Rudolecký, the vice-chairman of the office, today to ČTK.
    The office dealt with the complaint at the first level. The Monday decision has not yet become legally valid.
    The competition for the design of the heritage restoration of the functionalist villa was announced by the city in November 2003. Half a year later, it selected a winner - the Association for the Tugendhat Villa, led by Omnia projekt. The second place was a joint project of Grym, Sapák, and Škrabal. The team disagreed with the decision and turned to the court. The Regional Court in Brno sided with them in 2006. It ruled that the municipal office should have disqualified the winning association from the competition.
    Based on later court decisions, ÚOHS reevaluated its initial approvals last year and stated that there were serious errors in the tender. It recommended the city cancel the entire competition or reconsider the results of the original one, and the council eventually canceled the tender.
    This step did not change the fact that there is a prepared project documentation for the restoration of the monument. It is possible that work will eventually commence based on the project due to time savings. However, the city hall does not want to delay the new selection process for the designer and will announce a tender in the coming months for a turnkey supply - repair and restoration of the villa, including project processing. It will depend on the bidding companies whether any will come to an agreement with the authors of the prepared documentation.
    This time, the new competition will not be organized by the city; it will be provided by the law firm MT Legal. The city will pay 236,000 crowns for its services. The council could announce the competition in March, said Mayor's Deputy Ladislav Macek to ČTK.
    The Tugendhat villa is the only Czech monument of modern art listed on the UNESCO heritage list. The building is in poor technical condition, and its repair has been planned for eight years. Due to disputes, it has not yet begun.