The jury of the ARCHITECTURE GRAND PRIX 2007 held its session in Prague from March 15 to 18 in the Trade Fair Palace of the National Gallery in Prague, ul. Dukelských hrdinů 47, Prague 7. The members of the jury were:

Odile Decq (France)

Alexandros Tombazis (Greece)

Jan Benda (Canada and China)

Matej Siebert (Slovakia)

Alexandros Tombazis

was voted chairman of the jury.

Registered as entries in the competition were a total of 82 works of architecture, though before the jury meeting one of the works was removed from the competition at the request of the client.

The entered works were divided into the following categories:

New Construction N 41 panels

Reconstruction R 12 panels

Interior Design I 10 panels

Landscape Architecture

and Garden Design K 6 panels

Architectural Design

and Small-scale Architecture D 6 panels

Artwork in Architecture V 3 panels

Urban Planning U 3 panels

From this total of 81 projects, 21 projects were retained for the short list. The Jury is of the opinion that that there was a high percentage of quality work, particularly if recalling that this competition is held every year and that all projects presented had to be completed in the previous year. This situation certainly reflects the overall quality of architecture design in the country.

The Jury considers that it is of vital importance to visit the projects, hence the members of the Jury devoted as much time to the visiting of the projects as possible, and strongly recommend that all the future Juries be urged to follow this procedure.

All the above projects were visited during a period of two and a half days, except for the projects R 4 and U 3 which were impossible to visit for practical reasons. In almost all cases, the authors of the projects were available at the site to say a few words about their work and to answer questions. The Jury believes that this is also a very useful practice.

After much deliberation, the Grand Prix was awarded to the project N 27 Center for ecological activities. The reason for such discussion was that the Jury felt there to have been a number of other projects deserving of this distinction. In particular, the Jury would like to mention:

Project V 3 Memorial to victims of Communism for the purity and simplicity of its design, its very strong symbolism and setting in the landscape. The Jury feels that it is a work of high artistic quality.

Project N 16 House in a Quarry. The Jury felt that the sensitive setting of the project in the landscape and the simplicity of its very strong architectural design could have well merited the Grand Prix.

However project N 27 was finally chosen not only for the friendliness and quality of its design but also to send a strong message concerning of the importance of incorporating environmentally-friendly design and sustainability into architectural practice.

In addition, the Jury wishes to share the following thoughts with the promoters of this competition.

– This annual competition is of great value in the sense that it rewards good work and brings architecture to the attention of the news media and the general public. All parties concerned can only benefit from such an effort.

– The categories of the entries should be more clearly defined. New architecture could be split into two groups: private homes and all other projects in a separate category. When it is the work of the architect of the building as a whole, interior design should not be considered separately from the main architectural category: interior and exterior should be rights be indistinguishable aspects of the work as a whole. Interior design should be a special category only when it is a supplementary design in a building of another author, or a renovation of an earlier building; in the latter case, it should come under the category of interior design and not under that of reconstruction. The category Design should promote industrial design, furniture and objects and should not be confused with architecture. Artwork in Architecture could be renamed and greater stress the integration of art into architectural practice.

– It would be very desirable if the authors of the Urban Planning projects were invited to make a short oral presentation to the Jury. Otherwise, it is especially difficult to be able to grasp the whole scope of each work.

The members of the Jury wish to thank the Czech Union of Architects for the honour of its invitation and its extreme hospitality. They also wish to thank Foibos Art Agency for facilitating their work.

Prague 18th March 2007

On behalf of the members of the Jury,

Alexandros N. Tombazis

Chairman of the Jury