Plzeň announced a competition among people for the most beautiful architectural work

PLZEŇ - The winner of the first year of the competition for the Hanus Zapal Award will receive a prize of one hundred thousand crowns, announced by the city of Plzeň. People can submit proposals for any construction completed during this year until the end of January 2006. A jury composed of prominent architects from outside Plzeň will make a decision by March 3, and the winner will be announced 13 days later at the gala evening of the construction fair in Plzeň. This was said to journalists by Milan Svoboda, the director of the Department of Concept and Development of the City of Plzeň.
The jury will include architects such as Petr Bílek, the chairman of the Czech Chamber of Architects, who has worked in the USA. Also on the jury will be Milan Hon, the chairman of the association of young architects Europan, co-author of the Dancing House in Prague Vladimir Milunič, prominent educator Josef Pleskot, and actor-architect David Vávra.
The proposer must include, among other things, a declaration of consent from the author and the owner of the building with the nomination. They will describe the reasons for the nomination, innovations, contributions, the significance of the work, and its relation to the author.
In the years 2003 and 2004, Plzeň, together with the company ABF, announced the Construction of the Year at the For Arch fair. However, these were proposed by the investors, builders, or architects themselves, who had to pay a registration fee of 10,000 crowns. Last year, the winner was the E Center building of the West Bohemian Energy in Plzeň in Slovany, and the year before, the headquarters and department store of the winter clothing manufacturer Hannah in the center on Americká Street.
Hanuš Zápal worked in Plzeň and southwestern Bohemia during the interwar period. Many schools in Plzeň and its surroundings were built according to his designs - in Plzeň, for example, the Business Academy, Masaryk School, Beneš School, and a school in Plasy. Zápal also designed the Plzeň crematorium, theater storage, and the Czech Brethren Church in Kralovice. In the field of monument restoration, Zápal played a significant role in the rescue and restoration of Santini's building in Mariánská Týnice near Kralovice.