The AIA Committee on Design selected six award winners in its Centre for Czech Architecture Ideas Competition, which challenged architects and architecture students to design a new center for architecture information and resources that also will house offices of Czech architecture organizations in Prague—The Czech Chamber of Architects, Czech Society of Architects, and the architecture journal Architekt—which lost the use their previous headquarters in a historic Prague palace to flood devastation in 2002.

With the cooperation of the Czech Chamber and Czech Society of Architects, two architects—Peter Lizon, FAIA, and Ladislav Labus, a member of the Czech Technical University faculty of architecture in Prague—developed the competition program. It called for a new center for architecture to provide a vital infill in a historic context facing the Vltava River, which incorporates an existing Baroque building and a Medieval water tower and adjoins a 19th-century residential building. It was also intended that the design solutions create a gateway into the center of Prague.

First Place
David Titz, CKA, and Zbynek Svoboda, CKA, Archicon s.r.o, Brno, Czech Republic
Jury comments: “This entry has a strong urbanistic approach and is very contextual. It maintains the street edge, and holds the fabric of the street as it turns the corner. In referring to the style of the 1930s, this design is in keeping with Central European architecture at its peak. It is a celebration of this style, appropriate to its place—an acknowledgment of the legacy of Modernism in Prague. This design creates a gateway, along with the Fragner Merkur Building on the other side of the street. In its treatment of the Baroque building on the site, this solution offers a sense that there is a layering of history and is suggestive of the present overlaying the past. The Baroque building becomes part of a new pattern, structure, and scale and is actually at the heart of this concept. Of all the schemes, it is the one that best understands human scale, relation to the city, and relation to Revolucni Street. Image courtesy of the architect.

Second Place
Michal Sourek, CKA, MS architekti s.r.o., Prague. Competition team: Anna Stancova and Alexandr Verner (architectural design), Tomas Sklenar (landscape architecture), and Adriaan de Kroon (architectural context and urbanism)
Jury comments: “This design solution wraps around the Baroque building and makes the complex unified. The metal fins suggest a vibration of the façade, allowing the character of light to change and reflect on its surface. The plan suggests an intent to weave outside to inside; to bring the outside in and create an inviting space. The encapsulation of the Baroque building creates the sense of a museum piece or artifact. This entry and the first-place entry show two different attitudes, each equally valid: A concern with overall fabric of the city and a notion that the Baroque building is central, and takes precedence within the urban fabric.” Image courtesy of the architect.

Third Place
Petr F. Bilek, CKA, AIA, Bilek Associates, Prague. Competition team: Marcela Bilkova, CKA, and Jiri Maly, CKA. With the collaboration of: Karolina Ailova, CKA; Robert Bretschneider; Zdenek Janecek, CKA; Dana Matejovska, CKA; and David Zadrazil
Jury comments: “The imagery evoked by the freehand sketches in this entry is appealing, and has a nice spirit. Although the massing offered by the design solution is convincing, it is perhaps too monolithic and opaque. This design solves the problem of integrating the Baroque building—it maintains its own presence within the design. This entry expresses clarity of detail—where form is needed, it is placed, though it needs more transparency. The access to the complex from Revolucni is very strong, and the entry is well-defined. This solution offers a third attitude with respect to the Baroque building: it becomes very special and fore-grounded within the design.” Image courtesy of the architect.

First Honorable Mention
L.E.FT LLC, New York City. Partners: Makram el Kadi, Ziad Jamaleddine, and Naji Moujaes. Competition team: Chris Lee and Joseph Chartouni
Jury comments: “The jury appreciates the bold, courageous approach to form-making. Its most redeeming elements are a careful study of plan and how the entry was subtly handled. The use of form is perhaps too willful and not contextual enough, in a similar way to Fragner’s Merkur and how it turns the corner. The jury invoked Aldous Huxley’s ‘difference between jarring juxtaposition and complementary contrast.’ The notion of creating outdoor space and seating and projection is a nice feature. The existing buildings on the site are embraced in a gesture of “wrapping around.” The written text makes a good connection to political issues, and explains the gesture of ‘wrapping.’”

Honorable Mentions:
Chad Boetger, AIA, Atlanta
Jury comments: “This entry offers a distinct articulation of architectural elements, which may work against it as well as in its favor. The design makes use of the building corner as a symbol, as a billboard—to create information. Prominence is given in program to the overnight guest accommodations, while other priorities are assigned less importance.”

KBAS +52, Alexandria, Va. Competition team: Julie Beckman, Keith Kaseman, Aaron Campbell, and Juliette Wolford
Jury comments: “This project shows promise in presentation, particularly in its use of diagrams, but suggests that the viewer must add another dimension to complete the design solution. The design invokes the phenomenon of passages, which are very important to the urban fabric of Prague as a symbol of city, similar to the arcades in Paris.”

Copyright 2005 The American Institute of Architects. All rights reserved. Home Page