THE EIGHTH year of the CE.ZA.AR awards, organised by the Slovak Chamber of Architects, now knows its winners. The award ceremony took place on October 8 in the Old Town Hall.
“The task of the CE.ZA.AR award is to stress the cultural value of architectural work, to support the excellence of professional work of architects, to point to the quality of the built-up environment and, most of all, to cultivate public awareness of architecture itself,” said architect Broňa Tarnócy, as quoted by the SITA newswire.
The CE.ZA.AR award, a bronze house designed by sculptor Ján Hoffstädter, is given in six categories: family houses, residential houses, public and industrial buildings, reconstruction and renovation of buildings as well as interior and exterior.
The award in the family houses category went to Peter Jurkovič, Lukáš Kordík and Štefan Polakovič for their IST – Family House in Čunovo (Bratislava Region) project, which is based on folk architecture principles that are still present in, for example, the ecologic sphere.
The residential houses category was won by a team of Štefan Polakovič, Lukáš Kordík, Peter Jurkovič, Roman Halmi, Jana Benková, Ivan Príkopský and Katarína Príkopská for a block of flats in Rimavská Sobota (Banská Bystrica Region). Their reconstruction significantly changed the flats as well as the environment around the building, as reported by SITA.
Project Kasárne Kulturpark Košice, designed by Irakli Eristavi, Pavol Šilla, Gabriel Boženík, Marcel Benčík, Milan Vlček and Silvia Šillová, won in the public and industrial buildings category. The team of authors managed to change the complex of former Austro-Hungarian barracks from 19th century style into a multi-genre cultural centre. Moreover, the whole complex has a strong environmental dimension.
The project also won the exterior category, since it changed the originally closed complex that was inaccessible for ordinary people, to open, public space composed of a park and a new square, SITA wrote.
The CE.ZA.AR award for reconstruction and renovation of buildings went to Martin Kusý Jr. for the recreation of a house in Partizánska Ľupča (Žilina Region). He managed to adapt the stone house built in the late 17th century for recreational purposes, while keeping its original character, while overlapping into the present day, as reported by SITA.
The award for interior was won by the LOFT project in downtown Bratislava designed by Štefan Polakovič, Lukáš Kordík, Samuel Zeman and Jana Benková. The project is interesting because it is an open space which combines parts of the old and new dispositions and gives them new functionality.
Based on internet voting, the jury also granted the Prize of the Public to the Cycling Bridge of Freedom which connects Austrian Schlosshof and Bratislava’s Devínska Nová Ves district. Its author Milan Beláček cooperated on the project with Zoltán Agócz and Ľuboš Rojko, as well as Igor Ščipák who made the 3D visualisation. Their main aim was to restore the historic road that connected the two sites until 1945, SITA wrote.
The winners were picked by an international jury composed of Austrian architect Marlies Breuss, French architect Maxime Enrico, Slovak architect Martin Jančok, Czech architect Osamu Okamura, Slovak producer and director Ivan Ostrochovský, French architect Yan Roche and Slovak architect Peter Vitko.
The jury picked 23 of 101 competing architectural works that made it to the semi-finals. Subsequently, it visited the sites and picked 17, from which the winners were chosen, SITA wrote.
The Slovak Chamber of Architects was surprised by the high number of competing projects.
“Despite the ongoing crisis the architectural scene is still vivid, and it probably focuses more on smaller and more elaborate assignments,” said Imrich Pleidel, head of the chamber, as quoted by SITA.
