Unfair criteria in Cyprus Museum contest say architects

CYPRIOT architects are up in arms over the competition requirements for the design of the new Cyprus Museum, which they claim are so “strict” that most local and  European architect will not be able to participate.

“They’ve chosen the wrong procedure with strict conditions,” said President of the Cyprus Architects Association and vice president of the Cyprus Technical Chamber (ETEK ) Constantinos Constanti.

The announcement for the opening of an international competition was made about 10 days ago by Communications Minister Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis.

Two of the main criteria that must be fulfilled for any interested architects are to have already built a museum worth €20 million and a project of a similar nature worth €40 million.

According to Constanti “the condition that candidates have built a museum worth €20 million limits the participation of many architectural teams.” “For me to be involved I would have to have done a museum already.” Constanti added that the financial magnitude of such a project may put other architects off.

Constanti also said that to even become involved in the competition,  around €50,000-€70,000 would be needed because the conditions specify that all two phases must be submitted rather than the usual provisions that allow architects to take part in Phase 1 of competitions only, which is not as financially prohibitive.

He said the Cyprus Architects Association was calling for an open international architectural competition consisting of two phases instead of one, which they already thought was agreed upon.

A one-phase competition would consist of an architect submitting a complete project at once, which is considered too expensive for the majority of offices. Constanti believes that a two-phase competition would be better as it would involve submitting ideas which would in turn be studied and chosen from. To do this would cost a fraction of the cost of submitting a completed project.

Constanti explained that another advantage would be that the architects whose projects make it through to the second phase would have more incentives to work as they would be prospective winners, and thus closer to the end goal.

The Communications Ministry said yesterday they planned to answer the concerns at a later date.

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