The winning design for the Brno Holocaust memorial is a plagiarized work

Brno - The recently concluded competition for the Holocaust Memorial in Brno will likely have a legal aftermath. The jury, composed of politicians, artists, and architects, declared the elementary object of academic painter Daniel Václavík as the winner from 51 competition proposals and awarded him a financial prize of 100,000 CZK. Soon after the announcement of the competition results, one of the participants, Brno architect Lubomír Hruška, pointed out the extreme similarity of the winning design to the memorial built in St. Paul, the capital of Minnesota.
The Brno plagiarism is linked to its American original not only by formal and material execution but also by the artistic treatment of water. Václavík proposes that "a veil of water drips from a black granite cube, which will create a mirror from the surface of the cube and give it distance from the surroundings." The same motif can be seen on the cube unveiled in 1977 at the capital in St. Paul.
Václavík denies the accusation of plagiarism and stated in his defense for the Brno Deník: "Unlike Hruška, I do not check my designs on the internet. I live in a cottage in the Krkonoš Mountains, far from all artistic events." The chairman of the jury, Brno architect Petr Všetečka, finds differences between the two memorials.
The competition for the Brno Holocaust Memorial has been marred from the beginning by rushed preparation, incompetent evaluation, and political interventions. The first competition was annulled by the city council. Representatives from both the Jewish and Romani communities were not invited to choose a substitute solution in the second competition. They learned of the competition results only from the media.

MN State Memorial The realization of the memorial at the capital in St. Paul was initiated by LEMA (Law Enforced Memorial Association), which was established in 1974 in Minnesota to support the families of police officers who lost their lives in the line of duty. The memorial was unveiled in 1977. The author is architect Paul Dahlberg, and the lighting was designed by Deb Edwards. > www.mnlema.org