The selection of candidates for the chief architect of Brno has narrowed down to four

Brno - The expert commission narrowed down the selection of candidates on Wednesday who are vying for the position of director of the newly established Office of the Architect of the City of Brno. From the original nine, four proceeded to the second round: Jiří Klokočka, Osamu Okamura, Michal Sedláček, and Miroslav Gabriel Sedlák. In the second round, which will take place on March 30, the commission will select a winner based on presentations and recommend them to the city council, stated Kateřina Gardoňová from the press center of the magistrate in a press release today.

The newly established city institution, funded by the city budget, aims to help shape the urban space better and participate in the creation of a new zoning plan or coordinate public buildings. At the same time, it is supposed to ease the burden on the Department of Urban Planning and Development, which will focus more on administrative matters.

The city leadership would like the office to start functioning as early as May or June. The selection of staff, which will number between 12 and 15, will depend solely on the new director. "I expect that they will already be involved in the work on the new zoning plan. At the beginning, we will focus on the spatial arrangement of the city, as we agreed in the council," said Deputy Mayor Martin Ander (SZ) earlier.

In addition to names, the city today also published the biographies of the candidates on the website. Jiří Klokočka has served as the chief urban planner of the Union of Towns and Municipalities of Kortrijk in Belgium from 1986 to 2011, leads an urbanism studio at the faculties of architecture at ČVUT in Prague and in Liberec. Osamu Okamura serves as the editor-in-chief of the architectural magazine ERA 21, and since last year, he has been a member of the commission for urban development in Prague and a consultant for the Public Space Creation Manual in Prague. He also teaches at faculties that focus on architecture and urbanism. Associate Professor Michal Sedláček is the founder of Aedas LA, the fifth largest architectural firm in the world based in Los Angeles. He is also a licensed architect in several U.S. states. Miroslav Gabriel Sedlák is the youngest of the quartet, having completed his studies in architecture and urbanism at VUT in Brno five years ago. Among other things, he founded and manages the Gallery of Architecture Brno and established an architectural studio.

The Office of the Chief Architect in Brno previously existed but was dissolved in 2003 when the city was governed by a coalition led by ODS. Its revival addresses criticisms that there is no clear concept for how the city should look in urban planning.