Kaplicky's London-based Future Systems studio won the international contest for the project last year. Bem (Civic Democrats, ODS) told CTK that the Czech anti-monopoly office (UOHS) must first decide on the project. If the UOHS issues a positive Cunek planning reorganisation, personnel changes in his ministry ...
Antitrust Office may decide on Czech National Library in April ...
Czech ministry spends thousands for employees' relaxation-press ... stance, it will be up to the Culture Ministry to allocate finances to the project.
If the government nods to the building, then it will be up to the National Library (NK) to decide whether its new building would be on the originally approved plots on Letna plain or elsewhere. "For the moment, Prague has nothing to do with the National Library, since the ball is now on the UOHS's side," Bem said. Kaplicky's project of a nine-storey building shaped as a broad pyramid with rounded edges, dubbed "octopus," has raised controversial reactions and divided the public as well as experts and politicians into the camps of its supporters and opponents. The National Library team as well as other expert groups have been discussing the circumstances of the new NK construction for a couple of months now. The library team made no final decision in late February and it said it would wait for the UOHS's stance. The Culture Ministry would probably also keep waiting for the UOHS's verdict. In the past, the UOHS halted administrative proceedings on the case twice, saying that as a supervisory body it was not authorised to assess the regularity of the international contest. However, the Culture Ministry then asked the UOHS to assess whether a public order can be based on the international contest's result. Public orders belong to the UOHS's agenda. UOHS head Martin Pecina said in today's daily Hospodarske noviny (HN) that his office conducts no proceedings that would lead to a decision on a new library and that "one can wait for it until Christmas." Pecina added that the UOHS had never dealt with such a matter yet and therefore it asked European clerks for advice. However, it has not yet received response from Brussels. Moreover, Pecina said everyone wants his office to ban the building. HN writes he is under pressure. Bem said if the NK wants new plots for the new building, the Prague assembly will negotiate about it, but it would probably not be earlier than next year. However in March, 2009, the two-year deadline will have passed. If a project contract were not signed by March 9, 2009, the author can withdraw from it and he would have the right to the remuneration of 160,000 euro for the first prize, according to the international architectonic contest's statutes. Then he can offer his design to anyone else. The Prague assemblymen decided to sell some plots for the library for a lower price previously, but the NK has not yet signed even a preliminary contract of purchase. The City Hall resolution says the NK would gain the plots if it had a building permit by the end of this year and secured the project funding. It is clear now that the NK cannot meet the city's conditions by the end of 2008.
(Ceske Noviny)
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