Experts from the commission criticize the choice of the Husserl monument for Prostějov

Prostějov - The Prostějov city hall has faced criticism from expert members of the selection committee regarding the organization of the competition for the design of a monument to the significant German philosopher Edmund Husserl, who was born in Prostějov in 1859. According to the experts, the conditions of the competition were non-standard and likely aimed at increasing the chances of one applicant for this contract worth up to 2.5 million crowns. The committee members stated this in a statement sent to ČTK today.

Mayor František Jura (ANO) criticized the committee's decision after the announcement of the best designs. The competition has been suspended, and the city council postponed its discussion, city spokesperson Jana Gáborová said today.

The city announced the competition in mid-July, and the deadline for submitting bids ended in mid-September. Ten proposals were submitted. The city expected that the new artwork would be installed in the square named after the philosopher in the spring of next year. However, according to the expert members of the evaluation committee, some of the conditions specified for the competition deviated from normal practice. They noted that the authors had only two months to submit their proposals, and some requirements regarding the parameters of the design were very complicated, in their view.

"The timeline for the realization of the statue also seemed almost unrealistic. The client did not reflect on the comments from the expert committee regarding the controversial parts of the assignment. However, from the committee's perspective, it was better to accept the city hall's conditions to ensure the competition actually took place than to reject them and completely abandon the sculpture competition and the statue's realization," stated the committee members, among whom is artist Kurt Gebauer.

Immediately after the announcement of the competition conditions, however, experts on the committee received complaints from the professional public. "They implied that the competition was clearly announced in such a way that a specific author with a specific project would win. In fact, that this project was already finished, thus only they had a chance to meet the extremely tight deadline for realization," the experts from the committee pointed out.

According to committee members, the author whose sculpture was expected to win has already been approached by the Prostějov leadership several times without a selection process. The committee ultimately selected a work titled Glasses with the Eyes of E. Husserl as the winning proposal. The proposal from the author who was allegedly favored by the competition conditions is not among the top three works, according to committee members. The first two winning proposals were also voted on by two city councilors who were members of the committee.

However, the mayor is not satisfied with the committee's decision on the best proposals. "The committee was lucky that I was not present in Prostějov that day. Otherwise, I would have dissolved it immediately and recommended that it never meet again. We in the city council mostly did not comprehend the works they labeled as the best and failed to grasp what they had in common with the world-renowned philosopher," Jura told the news website Prostějovské novinky.

The city council has already suspended the competition. "The city hall is starting to backtrack and question the selection process it initiated. It seems that it did not turn out according to the councilors' expectations, namely that the future shape of the sculpture had been decided long before the selection process even began," stated the experts from the committee in their announcement.