Ještěd in a Cage 2010 - Jury Responses

Michal Kuzemenský

When I was invited to the jury, the second thing I asked was whether the organizers were aware of the diversity of opinions within the jury. They responded that yes, it is intentional; a discussion will arise. And that certainly happened.
For those who are not familiar with the environment: all studios are located in Liberec in one hall, so they can influence each other mutually. Right from the start, the organizer pointed out the diversity among the individual studios. My first surprise was that I was practically unable to discern the differences between the individual studios. If I were to talk about style or tendency, no single or specific one is taught here: universal neo-modernism. This is the second surprise: the school lacks a studio teaching a specific tendency. Such a studio is characterized by a critical attitude toward other tendencies (or derivatives of universality). The result is clearer profiling, delineation of other studios, and ultimately, a readable discussion. Another result of this atmosphere is the students' awareness of "what is my theme, or... what is my tendency." This topic sparked a discussion within the jury. I replied: imagine Louis Kahn consulting deconstructivism.
The third surprise: the school in Liberec lacks a bottom. I did not see, as in Prague, distinctly bad studios, and a number of bad works. They are generally good. I believe that the collectivist mood in the Liberec hall plays a significant role in this – the students push each other up. However, this holds true in reverse as well; there are no complete top-tier works... and a different perspective... not only on architecture. The plurality of opinions has a flip side: boundlessness, where everything is possible. Right-wing blends with left-wing, green can also be brown. The search for a path can easily turn into a self-centered goal: mastering the discipline itself. Shot put: and the best is the farthest, but without the question of where I throw and why.

Individually, we wandered through the hall for an hour and a half. After the first round, I had a clear favorite. The House of Three Towers in Vršovice. I also had favorites that I categorized as "only over my dead body." Among those was the Crocodile in Letná.
From the original seventeen selected projects, the jury repeatedly circled and discussed, crossed out, crossed out, and finalized at seven.
First and only place in the design category: Folding chair. So simple and obvious that it is almost unbelievable. The chair in its unfolded state looks like randomly thrown cartons, and with a simple shake, it folds like origami into a spatially stable structure – the plan is a quite known runic symbol ensuring the rigidity of the whole, polished here like a diamond. If Jindřich Traugott does not yet hold copyright on it, he should quickly do so. Hmmm, the first year. Congratulations!
Third place in the house category: Embassy in Washington. Complex context and operation. Well-designed house. Block spatial scheme, clear, straightforward. The student knows how to do it and also knows the trend. The Great Golden Gate: a house-sculpture that makes this project what it is, interesting and noticeable, makes me think about what a simple office is, a service to citizens... and if that golden gate is perhaps not slightly out of proportion with the height of our gross domestic product. I imagine: I am American and I go through this gate for one stamp... what kind of state awaits me?
Second place in the house category: house underground. Actually quite a simple exercise on space and zenithal light, but so cultivated and convincingly mastered, that it independently appealed to the entire independent jury. The simpler and more naturally it looks, the harder the process probably was. The author did not try to scratch their back with their foot, and I appreciate that. Beauty.
First place in the house category: Three house-towers. It fits, it has charm, neighborliness, kindness, it perceives the hard context of the sorely - yet it is purely contemporary. The three houses create urban spaces that are precisely the delicate areas that are forgotten in CZ, while at the same time being a necessary monument at the corner of a strange square/intersection. The design mixes several references, and none of them is glaringly readable. Realism. To hit the essence of the place like this does not always succeed. Congratulations with respect.
Third place in the urbanism category: a large house that resolves the boundary between the city and the river. Problematic aesthetics and the essence of the house itself, but the principled solution is great: the house holds the city together with mass but leaves several floors in the ground floor to let the level of the city street gradually slope down until it pierces the stone embankment and creates a gateway to the river. Clearly defined space from both sides, but different worlds. A meaningful and viable solution for the embankment.
Second place in the urbanism category: Sandberg Meeting Point. A work oscillating between a work of art, urbanism, and house design. All three edges are well connected and managed with ease. A work that could and should stand. It is great when a memorial monument does not lack humor, let alone dark humor, as is the case here. The block of the house intersects with the former cable car where it was cut by the Iron Curtain; one of the cable car's pulleys finds itself in the axis of the house and looks like the main gate... into the wall. Awesome.
First place in the urbanism category and the winner of JFK-03: What is fascinating is not the result, but primarily the way in which the student arrived at it. Here I had to realize to the full extent that I am evaluating the work of a student... and what actually the criteria for evaluating student work are. The chain of questions the student had to ask themselves was transformed into a comprehensible explanation of the essence of their work. (In this regard, the fewer flashy perspectives the better). A small word about aesthetics: even without it, I would prefer to do without; in this regard, the house is squarely in the early eighties. I learned to overlook it, not to get bogged down in details, and to focus on the principle of the student's work.
In their design, the author constructed a linear block above the busy Milada Horáková street, which connects Letná and Stromovka through its perforation - shaping - volume omission, deepening Milada Horáková street and linking it underground with the outlet of the tunnel currently being built. It reacts to the degradation of Letná Plain due to linear garages associated with the tunnel construction. At two-thirds of its height, the house creates a fascinating urban space, a kind of urban promenade with an exceptional view.
As a presentation of the design for the public, I would choose spatial schemata running on the notebook over visualizations. The visual appearance of the house does not suit me more than that, but the structure of the house and, above all, the urban intervention related to the house is appropriate. One of the jury members remarked: "For a coarse sack, a coarse patch." It is not that coarse, certainly, but a discussion arose about whether it is possible to criticize, comment on, or moralize through architecture.
The initial energy and certainty with which the block is cut is admirable and legible. I believe that with the same energy, it would have been possible to skip the consideration of the detailed use of the house (which suggests cubic extraction) and direct the work with equally energetic and assured gestures towards the greater believability of the Crocodile. What happens inside the house is still one at this stage of the design. It could be anything. A realistic film is still grinding to a halt.
Proposals for big gestures and significant interventions are a legitimate consideration of the city. They are not a game. They are not art. They are not design. With the correct questions posed and painful searching for answers, they are architecture. Answers may sometimes not exist. This year in Liberec, Michal Krejčík asked carefully on a politically charged construction site, and that is why he won the award for the best student work.

I returned from Liberec thoughtful and richer for one experience. How beneficial a discussion can be between different worlds that mutually respect each other. To what extent new insights can be reached through listening, and what happens if someone presents their clear tendency to me and I present mine to them – both sides cultivate each other. There is no idle chatter. No shot putting. Explanations about where and why. Although the Crocodile is not my cup of flaming diesel, I am glad that it won, and I can repeatedly explain why it is good (... and why it is bad).

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Cyril Říha

Participation in the JFK award jury meant for me the opportunity to see the work of the Liberec school of architecture again in its entirety after five years. It also meant a return to the competition itself, whose zero edition I once helped to organize. Thus, a comparison arises. However, my view this year obviously represents a perspective from the other side. A view that we, as organizers, intentionally set as enforcedly fleeting and unbiased as a supplement to the undoubtedly more thorough but also burdened perspectives of the authors and heads of studios. Each of these perspectives has its advantages and disadvantages, and it is very likely, but not at all detrimental, that it will prefer somewhat different accents in the exhibited projects. An external perspective, devoid of the possibility to consult the project with the creator, relies solely on what is exhibited. Thus, it may more easily assess how comprehensible and strong the project is in itself, how convincing it is than that other kind of view. It can, however, also slip into superficiality and a one-dimensional judgment. I am aware of both. The final verdict of the commission was negotiated for a long time, but in good discussion, and in the end, it was unanimous. Overall, a very pleasant day. To our result, I dare to offer a somewhat more personal and general comment.

JFK has changed over the past five years, and the school has too. For a long time, I have been convinced (and perhaps have modest experiences with it) that it is good that there are various schools of architecture in the Czech Republic. There should not be and should not be a single approach to architecture; let there be many schools that teach them. They should confront each other, compare, and compete (just as, for example, five years ago at the symposium on the reconstruction of the monastery garden in Bechyně). However, each school should also work more on its advantages – unique potentials given by the school's environment, but also its own tradition. On what other schools do not have. Techniques (as compared to academies) have the opportunity for cooperation with builders, engineers, transportation planners, etc., but the Liberec school has always been characterized by a tradition of experimentation and creative thinking (due to SIAL's legacy, but also the work of teachers like Monika Mitášová, Petr Rezek, etc.). From this perspective, my first but very intense impression was that the differences here are blurring. Liberec has gotten incredibly close to the Prague Technical University with a "push to the door" – in the effort for the feasibility of projects, the quality of execution, and the amount of submitted work, but at the same time, innovation, conceptual thinking, and experimentation, which were so customary here, have diminished.

This feeling also reflected in the assessment of our commission, which is thus not only a judgment of individual projects but also a general report back to the school. In the experimental category, we deliberately nominated no student work for an award. Another such message can be gleaned from the result that in the urbanism category, projects that would traditionally not be considered urbanistic were awarded. However, urbanism, in my opinion, is not primarily a matter of regulatory lines and fields or mass studies, but chiefly a matter of thinking about the strategic development of the area, about a scenario for its development, or about specific catalysts that should initiate such development. An urban role can also be taken by a single conceptually placed and dimensioned urban element, such as the winning "crocodile" – how it attempts to influence the life of the entire district is, I think, much more interesting than its form. From the evaluations, a message about the support of the first-year students is finally clear, about the support of the enthusiasm that comes with them and which is still evident in the unique "hangar" of Liberec.

Much, on the other hand, falls out of our awards. From what I oversee, I would like to mention at least the energy that I felt primarily in the studio of Zdeněk Franek – a palpable energy from the collaborative work of students and teachers that must be taking place here. It is evident that something is happening here within the framework of education with the students, even though their results are not always completely polished and only one is among the nominated. Here lies the answer to the question posed to us by the organizers, namely whether the current studios differ in anything – at first glance, perhaps not, but during a longer stay in the studio booths, it is, in my opinion, evident that in some places there is more energy, and in others, less. Certainly, however, it flows from year to year, in some places it increases, while in others it seems to be disappearing (where, for instance, is last year's AG studio?).

I would therefore like to conclude by wishing the school and the JFK competition that the overall amount of energy remains at least the same as it has been so far...

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Radek Šíma

Colleagues,
in commenting on the JFK 03 competition and the jury's decision-making process,
we can repeat the statements of jurors when evaluating previous editions:
we also noted a relatively uniform level of works
(even though the CROCODILE roared from Letná immediately during the first reading),
we also discussed the centripetal force of the space, which acts against the tensions of the individual studios and mixes them into one whole
(even though two mentioned studios stood out),
we also could not avoid moralizing over contested assignment topics
(even though contemplating such tasks and especially looking for solutions
is the best preparation for the architect's reality).

I went to Liberec to verify the feeling I have from your colleagues who have passed through our office: in Liberec, buildings are lived in; this is not architecture until half past three, after which it is volleyball.
Yes, exactly that was evident in those projects. Thank you.

p.s.
Just before the announcement of the results, there was a "Freudian" omission in the jury's minutes.
No, do not worry; you know all the awarded projects. And what was it about? That is a secret.
A SECRET, after all, belongs to the hedgehog and the cage.
It belongs to architecture too.

Complete jury of JFK03 in the photo from left: Cyril Říha, Michal Kuzemenský, John Eisler, and Radek Šíma.