The UOHS recommended that the NK annul the original contest, referring to the EC document, which the office received a Czech PM reckons with new national library building ...
EC says Czech National Library tender was not in order - server ...
Anti-trust office head secretly meets businessman Babis - CT ... month ago and CTK has at its disposal. The EC ruled that Kaplicky could not be directly assigned with the project documentation on the basis of such a contest. The NK should not have launched an architectonic contest for the library design, but place a public order, says the EC stance expressed by Ugo Bassi, from the EC Directorate General Internal Market and Services. Yet the UOHS previously accepted the exemption from the law on public orders that the NK applied in the case of the contest, held under the rules of the International Union of Architects (UIA). "Our stance is not binding yet.
However, if the library kept acting according to the contest and assigned Mr Kaplicky with working out the project documentation, we could interfere," Jindriska Koblihova, UOHS deputy head and director of the public orders section, said in August. According to CTK information, NK director Vlastimil Jezek will probably be dismissed over the problems around the library competition. The Culture Ministry has neither confirmed nor refuted the information. Culture Minister Vaclav Jehlicka (Christian Democrats, KDU-CSL) has indicated it is one of the options. Jezek has also been criticised for not having secured the plots for the library, planned on Prague's Letna plain close to the city centre, before the architectonic contest. The Culture Ministry called on Jezek in August to annul the competition, but he did not follow the order, arguing he had no reason to do so. He repeatedly dismissed having made any mistakes in the preparation of the international contest. Jezek, who has occupied the post of NK head since autumn 2004, will run for the Senate for the KDU-CSL in the autumn elections. Kaplicky's design 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 its supporters and opponents. However, the National Library badly needs a new building because it is running out of capacity and the conditions for keeping books are not suitable.
(Ceske Noviny)
more info >>
<< Back