Comment on the results of the architectural competition for the KKVC in Zlín

First of all, we would like to emphasize that this comment is not intended to be interpreted as criticism of the work of fellow competitors. We want it to provoke discussion and changes in the behavior of juries in architectural competitions and to contribute to their greater transparency and comprehensiveness in evaluating competition proposals. The comment is strictly outside the personal realm.

As competitors, but also as Zlin patriots, we feel compelled to express our views on the course and outcomes of the recent competition. This is particularly due to the fact that we see a confluence of various ills afflicting architectural competitions in our country as a whole in the results. With this letter, we are addressing both the competition's organizer responsible for the development of the given area and the chamber of architects, which is the professional dialogue partner. Below, we will attempt to highlight the individual shortcomings in the example of the Zlin competition and its course, which we believe render the competition's outcome entirely contrary to the spirit of the brief.

Competitions in the Czech Republic

Generally speaking, architectural competitions in the Czech Republic are increasingly used as a tool to legitimize the organizer's tendency to push through a certain, predetermined solution. With the assistance of the chamber of architects, competitors are held hostage by the inscrutable intentions due to their professionally blinding optimism. This same approach is known from usual practice, where seemingly rational arguments (from colleagues vying for the contract) mask the hidden business interests of those involved. Rationality has become a charm misused to defend financially exploitable mediocrity. The average architectural quality of implementations is then legitimized for the public through some pseudo-competitions for the best building.

Shouldn't architectural competitions, especially under the supervision of a professional organization, be a transparent environment, protected from tendentious influences?

Announcement of the KKVC competition, competition conditions

It is a known problem that competitions are still announced in our country with insufficient publicity, in this case completely insufficient advance notice, not to mention the collision of the date with holidays and vacations. It is as if the organizer, despite the own invested costs, had no interest in broad participation and discussion. The fact that many quality studios eventually participated is merely due to a great degree of enthusiasm for the cause. The pilot competition for the world-unique area of the former Baťa factory should have been automatically announced as international. However, the organizer fell short, as the competition does allow participation of European architects, but is not even fractionally backed by international professional authorities from the fields of contemporary architecture, history, or heritage protection. If the competition aims to be international, it should also have an international jury.
The traditionally extensive terms of reference have been compiled in a way that compiles the requirements of various stakeholders without clear structure. These are left unopposed and the whole brief is undermined by the claim that it is merely of a recommendatory nature. Competition conditions, where it is not clearly stated what is recommended, what is required, and what is permitted, give the jury inadequate room for their own interpretation of priorities. Thus, the jury enters a position of absolute arbiter, in whose power is the rejection of a proposal based on incommensurable evaluative approaches. We are not advocates of unbreakable conditions, but a completely free interpretation of the brief during evaluation undermines the serious effort of the competitors to fulfill it. If the organizer wanted a free interpretation of the brief, they should have clearly communicated this to the competitors and announced the competition as ideational.

Can the principle of open commentary on the brief and goals of the competition (moderated by the chamber of architects), with feedback in professional discussion and incorporation of relevant comments into the final brief, be practically instituted?

Composition of the jury

For an impartial result of architectural competitions, the composition of the jury is absolutely crucial. It should, of course, be constructed with an emphasis on the professional expertise of its members, but with equal weight, the selection of jurors should strive for the maximum breadth of perspective. The importance of balancing the jury is even greater in the context where competition participants are not allowed to comment on its composition in any way. This is a very sensitive issue, because competitors enter the competition primarily because of its topic, and a jury composition that prejudges the outcome (however much we hope this is usually a bias) can lead to the decision not to participate in the competition.
In connection with the competition that took place in Zlin, we do not consider the link between the competition's organizer (Zlin Region), the competition jury, and the drafter of the conditions to be appropriate. This link was created during a long-term close collaboration on the reconstruction of Zlin's Building 21, which was undoubtedly a significant condition for success. However, transferring this to the competition automatically distorts the perspective on the issues being addressed (regardless of whether consciously or unconsciously). To explain, the chairman of the jury for the KKVC, Professor Miroslav Masák, served during the reconstruction of the "Zlin skyscraper" as the head of the team of heritage conservation experts, Architect Petr Všetečka (the drafter of the competition conditions and catalog) as the chief architect of the restoration of the building, and the authorized representative of the competition organizer (and dependent juror), Mr. Libor Lukáš, as the statutory representative of the client. Can the chairman of the jury be considered independent in such a case? Did a situation not arise with the nomination of Professor Masák in the jury rendering a disproportion of 4:5 against independent jurors?
If we look at the competition protocol on the complete participation during the jury meeting including invited experts, the situation is even worse (score 5:11). Participants in the meeting not only vote but also actively participate in the discussions. It is certainly possible to invite specialists who have been involved in the relevant topic as experts, however, it is also appropriate to maintain a proportional distribution between participants in the evaluation and not to exaggerate the side involved in the long-term resolution of the issues, and therefore dependent. Otherwise, we risk a one-sided view on the topic being addressed. The mechanical application of procedures established on the "twenty-one" instead of connecting to the architectural qualities of Zlin will lead to its sterilization.

We consider it crucial to create a mechanism through which the nominations of competition juries would arise more pluralistically.

On the way of jury evaluation

We are very surprised that in a situation where the terms of the competition have been so detailed, the jury prefers proposals that have such a necessary degree of completion. When seeking the reason for the jury's decision, we are referred to the brief evaluations of individual proposals contained in the Protocol on the Work of the Jury. However, the short evaluations show a significant imbalance in the descriptions of individual projects. In the awarded proposals, evidently problematic aspects of the solutions are not commented upon, while in the non-awarded proposals, marginal shortcomings are often highlighted, leaving the whole text with the impression of a retrospective defense of the jury's irrational decision. Comments from the reviewers of the competition proposals, which should contain the shortcomings of the projects concerning the brief, are not presented.
There is no feedback on such evaluations; any originality is easily rejected, and the jury rewards proposals that have passed the voting screen due to their "non-conflictiveness." Does it make sense to state in the brief the decisive requirements of the client, when the jury subsequently ignores them without comment? (in all awarded proposals, the lack of connection between buildings, in the winning proposal, capacity for parking, placement of book storage in the basement, etc.)
The method of evaluation based on sequential voting yes, no, abstained, excludes discussion and devalues decision-making to voting that levels the jurors' opinions. This voting method, including the procedure that led to the division of the jury into "working groups" focused on individual aspects of the solutions, does not correspond to the number of submitted proposals (36). The insight of all jurors into the topic should be complete; all voters should be familiar with the individual aspects of the proposals.

Can a balanced ratio between dependent and independent jurors be achieved not only among voting jurors, but also among other members involved in the meeting?

On the factual impossibility of filing a protest

Competitions assigned and evaluated in a similar manner to that in Zlin realistically do not allow competitors to file a protest. Objections can only be submitted within 15 days of the announcement of the results, whereas the participant is not adequately familiar with the results and is reliant solely on a very brief comment in the competition protocol without graphic documentation. Studying the competition proposals is nearly impossible, and the exhibition (and its catalog) held long after the deadline for filing objections does not help in this regard at all (see description of the KKVC exhibition below).
The conditions for participating in arbitration (the second possibility of filing a protest determined by the conditions) due to their intimidating nature represented by the deposit amounting to 5% of the first prize (in this case CZK 55,000) hardly deserve comment.

It is necessary to introduce a real remedy and the possibility of protest with a feasible filing deadline.

On the presentation of the results of the competition

All publications of the results of the competition are incomplete, including those published on the ČKA website. At the exhibition required by the competition rules, a comprehensive opinion on the individual proposals cannot be obtained. 3 panels out of 10 are displayed according to the organizer's selection (not always content-wise the same for individual proposals), there are no text reports on the projects, no evaluations by the jury, nor any introduction to the issues being solved (i.e., history, reason for the announcement, content, evaluation criteria, etc.). The presentation of the proposals is oriented to the visual aspect of the solutions, documentation solving the links to the urbanism of the given place (industrial complex, bus station, Vavrečková street, etc.) is omitted. The submission of all graphic parts of the proposals was required on the exhibition panels, so it is surprising that this was not utilized in the exhibition. The spatial parameters of the exhibition hall would have allowed for the publication of complete proposals.
Although the exhibition could have been well-situated due to its direct link to the topic and easy visitor accessibility in one of the discussed buildings (the empty floors of building No. 15), it is placed in one of the most poorly topographically accessible spaces in Zlin - the House of Art. This space (resulting from a devastating reconstruction of the Baťa memorial) is one that the gallery itself is trying to leave through the KKVC competition, and the long-term low visitor numbers are one reason for this.
The processing of the catalog is very decent by Czech standards. However, the same cannot be said about the content side of the catalog. In the initial introduction to the intention and conditions of the competition, the wording of the brief is intentionally changed to retroactively justify awarded competition proposals that do not fulfill the assumption of connecting buildings through entry spaces and visitor service areas (see "expected distribution of functions"). In all tables and articles of the competition brief, the entry spaces connecting the two existing buildings are listed as one of the main topics of the brief. If the jury decided to resign without commentary on this fundamental component of the brief, why is this not explicitly stated, and public opinion is manipulated through the misinterpretation of the brief in the catalog? Indeed, the entire brief is negated in the competition conditions as recommendatory, but its manipulation in the catalog is, in our opinion, shocking.
Proposals in the catalog are again not presented in sufficient measure (fragmentation of documentation, illegibility of drawings, focus on visual impact, absence of drawings of urban integration). For example, there is no mention of "holograms," which graphically dominate the winning proposal, and were it not for the introductory words of L. Lukáš, we would know nothing about this apparently difficult-to-implement element at all.
The usual objection regarding insufficient funding for quality processing of presentation does not hold when the prizes are distributed. The redistribution of financial resources within the competition budget with reserves for its promotion would be very easy given the amount of the prizes.

The presentation and exhibition of the results of the competition must be content-complete, maximally accessible, and freely available to the public.

Debate on awarded proposals

The competition was announced as a project-based one; however, the evaluation clearly bears the signs of an ideational competition, with some proposals assessed at a project detail level, while others are leniently highlighted for their ideational contribution and receive no comments on elaboration in project aspects.
Due to bias, as participants in the competition, we do not wish to directly comment on the awarded proposals. However, to understand the aforementioned criticisms of the course of the competition and the selection method, we must at least provide some basic commentary.
The winning proposal lacks the connection between buildings, the garage does not meet the requirements (replacing it with surface parking is a clear urban mistake), the permeability between buildings via the raised base is debatable, etc. The connection to Vavrečková Street, praised in the evaluation, is contained in various forms in most proposals. The proposal balances the absence of an identification feature in the architectural solution by placing suspended projection surfaces (?) in the recesses, whose true impact and realizability are highly questionable. The degree of necessary refinement of the proposal and changes stemming from the incorporation of shortcomings (lack of parking, connection of buildings) will affect the final solution so significantly that the final form of realization will likely be very different from the competition proposal. With similar approaches, the addition or reduction of selected parts of the project can achieve a similar result in a third of the submitted proposals.
None of the awarded proposals fulfills the ambition of the brief to highlight the importance of the institution that will be located here through significant architectural solutions. In the context of contemporary world architecture and numerous examples of successful conversions of industrial heritage, the results of the competition do not offer an adequate outcome.
If the result of the competition represented by the winning proposal aligns with the organizer's expectations, it is rather surprising that an architectural competition was even announced. We believe that a similar result could have been achieved without the demanding drafting of competition conditions, defining the requirements for connecting three institutions located in the proposed area, and other subtopics of the brief. It can be assumed that intensive work on the project, consulted continuously with the involved parties, would produce a much more comprehensive and persuasive proposal. This phase will now commence, and it is very likely that by the end of it, we will not recognize the winning proposal.

How can we transparently define the discussion following the results of the competition and the connection between the winning proposal and its realization?

Résumé

As practicing architects who frequently participate in architectural and artistic competitions, we care greatly about creating an open environment in which we can successfully achieve results commensurate with the brief. Our comment does not aim to offer direct solutions to the current situation. That should be the result of a broader discussion. It is evidently necessary to participate in the process from within, to enter the existing structure, and through dialogue attempt to influence the current unsatisfactory environment of Czech architectural competitions. We will try to go further and become jurors through the regular formal process of ČKA, however, if the situation is to change, it will be essential for representatives of younger architectural generations to appear as much as possible in the juries. We would thus like this comment to also serve as a call to colleagues to participate in this direction, regardless of whether the motivation will be agreement or disagreement with the aforementioned.

In competitions, as well as in the realization of their results, it is primarily about the quality of the environment in which we will operate...


Petr Janda, Michal Pešák, Pavel Martinek, Jan Lapčík,
authorized architects of ČKA, participants of the competition

contacts:
MgA. Ing. arch. Petr Janda ([email protected])
Ing. arch. Michal Pešák ([email protected])
Ing. arch. Pavel Martinek ([email protected])
Ing. arch. Jan Lapčík ([email protected])