The National Library has filed an appeal regarding the competition for a new building

The National Library of Prague (NK) has filed a petition with the Supreme Court regarding the court dispute with HXH Architects, formerly HŠH Architects. This defends itself against the final decision of domestic courts concerning the competition for a new NK building. The appellate court confirmed in November that the institution should have disqualified the winning design by Jan Kaplický, as it did not meet the competition conditions, and ordered HXH studio to pay the difference between the reward for third and second place. According to the director of NK, this is an absurd process, and the Czech court has no right to change the order established by an independent expert commission. The Czech News Agency (ČTK) was informed today about the petition by NK spokesperson Irena Maňáková.

At that time, studio HŠH finished third in the competition, and the library had to pay 1.6 million crowns as the difference in financial reward for third and second place, according to the court's decision. The total awarded amount, including interest and legal costs, is approximately three million crowns.

The results of the closely watched competition were announced in March 2007 in the personal presence of its winner, architect Jan Kaplický, who lives in Britain. However, his design, nor any other, was realized after months of politicized debates.

"It is absurd. This architectural competition was governed by the rules of the International Union of Architects, which confirmed the results of the competition on June 11, 2007. The suing architects received third prize, and the Czech court has no right to change the order established by an independent expert commission; moreover, it also did not award the first prize to the architects who received the second prize at that time. Therefore, according to the decision of the Czech court, we should probably have two second prizes and no third," says Petr Kroupa, tasked with managing the National Library, regarding the court's decision.

He finds it disgraceful that all participants in the competition signed its rules, which state that any disputes will not be resolved in domestic courts. He is also troubled by the fact that the court states that NK should have disqualified the winning design, but does not say that the winner was excluded and that all teams from the eight-member final moved up in awards.

Studio HŠH filed a lawsuit several months after the announcement of the results. They argued, for example, that one of the competition conditions required placing the National Conservation Fund above ground, which Kaplický did not meet with his proposal. The studio waited eight years for the court's verdict.

Vlastimil Ježek, who as the then-director of NK announced the international architectural competition and led the institution at the time of the announcement of its results, repeatedly stated that even if Kaplický's proposal had been disqualified, it would not automatically mean changes in the amount of the distributed prizes. According to him, Kaplický came up with a solution that neither the client, the librarians, nor the jury composed of experts could envision as safe.