Challenge from the leadership of the Faculty of Architecture CTU for the 25th anniversary of the Olověný Dušan competition - 2018

```html It is not a recap of the undeniable significance and influence of this "cult competition for the best student projects and studios" at the Faculty of Architecture CTU. It is a reflection of somewhat bitter and heterogeneous perceptions of the results of the Lead Dummy in the present on both sides - the Association of Architecture Students (SPA) and the faculty administration, aimed at the future. With the goal of reviving shared monitoring of the original attributes of this competition by the SPA, the juries of the Lead Dummy, and the faculty leadership: "the quality of architecture and design education at the Faculty of Architecture CTU in Prague."

The administration of the FA CTU values the tradition of the Lead Dummy competition, which has lasted for nearly a quarter of a century, organized by the Association of Architecture Students at the FA, as an independent reflection of the level of studio projects by students of the Faculty of Architecture, as well as a platform for supporting communication between students, educators, and alumni on the subject of architectural education and practice. At the same time, the representatives of the FA greatly appreciate the SPA for the level of production of the Lead Dummy competition itself and the ceremonial announcement of results and award presentations.

However, in recent years, we have watched with concern the formal and substantial signs of the fading of support for mutual communication, but on the contrary, the strengthening of biased and even controversial attitudes toward the level of most studios and the faculty, manifested among other things by not adhering to its own competition rules. Both those explicitly defined by the statute or "just" generally shared norms and assumptions of impartiality.

Last year, two jurors, one of whom was also the chair of the jury, participated in final critiques in two studios before making decisions in the jury. One of these studios, where the chair of the Lead Dummy jury participated in the critiques, subsequently won the Lead Dummy award. The then-chair of the SPA, Ondřej Lebeda, was alerted by the FA leadership to this "conflict of interest or impartiality" and was informed of the reservation regarding the publication of open criticism of ten FA studios. The chair of the SPA acknowledged the criticism and promised to take the FA leadership's objections into account in the upcoming years of the Lead Dummy competition.

However, this year, there was an even more serious breach of the competition rules, not only those unwritten, but shared and therefore expected, but even those written directly in the competition statute and nonetheless undisclosed by the jury and the organizer - SPA, which set them itself.

In this year's competition, the Lead Dummy award was granted only in the field of Design, but in both the Project and Studio categories to a student and a studio in the 1st year - within the course Foundations of Design 1, which does not comply with the competition statute. The statute defined by the SPA, not the FA administration, expressly excludes evaluating and awarding the Lead Dummy prizes to studios in the first-year: "Diploma projects, projects related to the ZAN subjects, and projects by SPA members present during the evaluation are excluded from the competition."

In the field of Architecture, this year the issue was not that awards were given to projects or studios that should not have been evaluated at all, but that the jury decided to award a total of nine so-called "jury awards" in the form of wooden substitutes for the lead award. The competition statute binds the jury to award a maximum of one Lead Dummy prize - in both categories; alternatively, it does not have to award one, but the term "jury award" is not recognized by the statute: "Round 4: The jury will award a maximum of 1 best project and 1 best studio in the field; Prize: The prize for the winner is a lead sculpture of the Lead Dummy…).

In this case, the rules of the competition seem to not have been followed. By both the organizer and the jury, as undoubtedly both parties were aware that they were exceeding their mandate. This is doubly surprising given that the chairman of the jury for the field of Architecture was Jan Šépka, publicly known for having (as a member of HŠH) fought for the adherence to the established rules in a prestigious international architectural competition for the National Library for several years.

The FA leadership urges the SPA to adhere to the unwritten and especially the written rules of the Lead Dummy competition in order to ensure the unquestionable legitimacy of this competition. It also calls for the use of this stimulating and unique competition to promote mutual communication, aimed at improving the "quality of architecture and design education at the Faculty of Architecture CTU in Prague" (competition statute).

On behalf of the Leadership of FA CTU in Prague
Dean Ladislav Lábus
April 12, 2017 ```