Grand Prix of Architects for the year 2023 was awarded to the headquarters of Kloboucká Lesní

Prague – The Grand Prix of Architects for the year 2023 was awarded to the headquarters of the forestry company Kloboucká Lesní in the village of Bylnice in the Zlín region. The building was designed by the studio mjölk architekti. The company aims to promote sustainable forest and landscape management; its headquarters is a transparent structure filled with glass, wood, and open space. The awards for the 30th edition of the competition organized by the Association of Architects were presented today at the Veletržní Palace in Prague. The lifetime achievement award went to Zdeňka Vydrová, an architect and urban planner, who was the city architect of Litomyšl for many years, and later of Tišnov.

"The Grand Prix winner demonstrates exceptionally high quality architecture, especially in the context of the village. The simple language of the A-frame building is understated and elegant, utilizing materials from nature, air, water, wood... just as we applaud the architects' success, we also commend the philanthropic intentions of the clients," said Amanda Levete, the jury chairperson, today.

In the reconstruction category, the award went to the restoration of the historical city slaughterhouse in Ostrava, which has been transformed into the PLATO Contemporary Art Gallery. The reconstruction was carried out by Polish architects Robert Konieczny, Michał Lisiński, and Dorota Skóra. In the same category, the jury also recognized the reconstruction of the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Osek and the restoration of the Baroque Chapel of St. Wenceslas in Prague Suchdol.

In the New Construction category, awards were given to the community housing for seniors in Křenovice, the Vinařství přátelé Pavlova, the technical services base in Prague Lysolaje, and the apartment building Bratislavská 52 in Brno. The revitalization of the Českobrodská school in Prague was recognized as a sustainable building, while the footbridge in Litomyšl won in the urbanism category. In the landscape architecture and garden design category, the jury awarded the park at Moravské náměstí in Brno. The education center of the Czech Philharmonic in Prague was recognized as the most successful studio, and the KVIFF.TV park, a pavilion built for various meetings and discussions by the organizers of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, won the award in the architectural design, small architecture, and artistic works in architecture category. The organizers of the Grand Prix of Architects also awarded 14 honorable mentions today.

Architect Josef Pleskot, in his laudation for Vydrová, noted that the sixty-four-year-old architect has been connected to southern Moravia throughout her life and work. According to him, her work is characterized by generosity and directness, as well as a confident and brilliant sense of design, great responsibility, and a relaxed grace that she possesses and emanates. She graduated from the Faculty of Architecture of the Brno University of Technology and began working at Stavoprojekt Brno in the studio of architect Viktor Rudiš after her studies.

In 1991, she founded her own studio, and a year later, she began working as the city architect of Litomyšl. It was her unassuming work on the development of architectural culture in Litomyšl that became her life’s work, for which she received the Minister of Culture’s Award in 2016.

In her own architectural practice, Vydrová often collaborated with the studio Rudiš + Rudiš. In the 1990s, she contributed to projects such as the assisted living facility in Litomyšl or the modifications of Pavilion G at the Brno Exhibition Centre. Together with the studio Rudiš + Rudiš and architect Ivan Koleček, she also dealt with the reconstruction of the Museum of Applied Arts in Brno. Vydrová has very few independent realizations. In 2006, a formerly agricultural building on the outskirts of Břeclav was converted into a family home according to her design, and her most unique realization is the small new building of the Pakosta Gallery under the castle mound.