The recipients of the ČKA Honor are Bohuslav Fuchs and Martin Rajniš

The Czech Chamber of Architects will announce the laureates of the Pocta ČKA award for the years 2015 and 2016. This will take place at the nomination evening of the Czech Architecture Award at the Archa Theatre in Prague on Thursday, May 31, 2018. The Pocta ČKA award for 2015 will be granted in memoriam to Professor Bohuslav Fuchs, and the Pocta ČKA award for 2016 will be awarded to Professor Martin Rajniš. Since 2000, the Chamber has honored significant figures in the field of architecture with this award.

Nominations for the Pocta award are submitted annually by the professional public, including members and individual bodies of the Czech Chamber of Architects. The laureates are then selected from the nominations by an expert jury. The jury that proposed the Pocta ČKA award for 2015 in memoriam to Professor Bohuslav Fuchs included the laureate of the 2007 award, Alena Šrámková, along with architects Miroslav Cikán, Antonín Novák, Václav Škarda, and journalist Jiří Horský. The jury that awarded the Pocta ČKA for 2016 to Professor Martin Rajniš consisted of architects Roman Brychta, Filip Landa, and Jaroslav Zima, supplemented by architectural theorist Oldřich Ševčík and journalist Karolína Vránková. The Czech Chamber of Architects grants this award to individuals in the field whose work and moral credit have made a significant impact on the modern history of Czech architecture.

Pocta ČKA for the year 2015 - Professor Bohuslav Fuchs

Professor Bohuslav Fuchs (March 24, 1895, Všechovice - September 18, 1972, Brno) was an outstanding architect of European significance, whose work fundamentally influenced not only Brno architecture but also the thinking of Czech architects. His personality transcended borders. Among the many works of Bohuslav Fuchs, notable examples include Zeman's café in Brno (1925 - 1926), the Avion Hotel in Brno (1927), or three pavilions at the Exhibition of Culture of the Czechoslovak Republic in Brno (1928). While working at the City Building Office in Brno, Bohuslav Fuchs designed regulatory plans for several city districts, as well as a competition proposal for the regulation of Brno's historical center called "Tangenta" (1926-1927, together with Josef Peňáz and František Sklenář). Among Fuchs's urban studies, his theory of new zoning should be highlighted. Professor Bohuslav Fuchs served as the Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Civil Engineering at the Brno University of Technology in the post-war period. However, in the late 1950s, he was politically forced to leave the school. Bohuslav Fuchs was an advocate for architectural competitions and actively participated in them as a competitor and juror. He was involved in several associations, including the Group of Visual Artists, the Union of Visual Artists Mánes, and he also worked on the editorial boards of several magazines - in the architectural section of the Left Front and in the Block of Visual Artists of the Moravian-Silesian Land.

The proposal to award Professor Bohuslav Fuchs in memoriam was submitted by architect Jiří Kraus, "to remind us of an outstanding architect and a rare person." Mr. Jiří Kraus was convicted by the communist regime in the 1950s and worked in Jáchymov, where he was even buried in the mines and partially paralyzed for a time. Although he was not allowed to study, Professor Bohuslav Fuchs enabled him to secretly study at the Faculty of Architecture and Civil Engineering at the Brno University of Technology, and after his conviction was wiped clean, he did not hesitate to verify Mr. Jiří Kraus's attendance at the school, allowing him to officially complete his studies in 1960. "The jury unanimously and with pleasure welcomed the initiative of architect Jiří Kraus, nominating Professor Bohuslav Fuchs for the Pocta ČKA in memoriam for his lifelong work and personal courage," the jurors stated in their report. "Architect Bohuslav Fuchs is one of those exceptional personalities whose courage, diligence, and talent contributed to the emergence of modern architecture and urbanism of the twentieth century. In his versatile and extensive work, he applied progressive spatial and layout solutions inspired by new constructions and materials, while also contributing to the creation of aesthetic forms that became part of the artistic culture of his time," the jurors justified their decision.

Pocta ČKA for the year 2016 - Professor Martin Rajniš

Professor Martin Rajniš (* May 16, 1944, Prague) is a Czech architect and urban planner who has earned respect and recognition on the international stage. He is a co-founder of the Czech Chamber of Architects. Among his many works, noteworthy examples include the Máj Department Store in Prague (with John Eisler and Miroslav Masák, 1975), the Czech Post Office Anežka on Snezka (H.R.A. Hoffman Rajniš Architects, 2007), or the airship Gulliver on the building of the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art in Prague (with David Kubík and Leoš Válka, 2016). The essence of his buildings is experimentation and the relationship between architecture, nature, and human society. Professor Martin Rajniš was also a university teacher. From 1990 to 1997, he served as a professor of architecture at VŠUP in Prague. In the academic years 2001/2002 and 2006/2007, he led the architecture studio at the Technical University in Liberec.

The award for Professor Martin Rajniš was proposed by architect Martin Kloda. The jury recognized him for his lifelong work in education; according to them, he is an architect of "soft adaptable design." The jurors stated, "Martin Rajniš takes the world seriously and experiences its risks, and he is able to capture them evocatively". According to the jurors, architecture for Martin Rajniš is "omnipotent": "There is nothing else that accompanies us so consistently, so unobtrusively, and yet so strongly," the jurors quoted the awardee. They described his work as follows: "Martin Rajniš is radical in relation to both the dominant mainstream and alternative directions. His architecture is simple, naturally simple, but: no reductionist, mannerist minimalism. The adjective 'simple' concentrates Rajniš's answer binding architecture to human existence on Earth - at least in the sense that it is an architecture of responsibility (the kind of responsibility that has disappeared from large producing architectural offices), an architecture that 'vibrates between abstraction and concreteness' and does not grow into a technology-rendered architectural metaphor. It is an architecture that becomes, in our time saturated with uncertainties, a manifestation of lived experience with space, a straightforward relationship with the visual and tactile experience of the world."

Overview of Pocta ČKA Laureates

2016 - Martin Rajniš
2015 - Bohuslav Fuchs (in memoriam)
2014 - Věra Machoninová
2013 - Rostislav Švácha
2012 - David Kopecký (in memoriam)
2011 - Karel Prager (in memoriam)
2010 - Viktor Rudiš
2009 - Emil Přikryl
2008 - Miroslav Baše (in memoriam)
2007 - Alena Šrámková
2006 - Miroslav Masák
2005 - Karel Hubáček
2004 - No award given
2003 - Josef Polášek (in memoriam)
2002 - Josef Havlíček (in memoriam)
2001 - Vít Obrtel, Otto Rothmayer, Oldřich Stefan, Zdeněk Vávra (in memoriam)
2000 - Petr Vaďura, Bedřich Rozehnal, Ladislav Žák (in memoriam)