Czech project awarded in international competition for Grand Egyptian Museum
In Egypt the Czech Republic is probably best known thanks to its archaeologists. Czech Egyptologists have been excavating in the country for decades and have achieved remarkable results. Now, the Czech Republic has the chance to become a synonym for quality architecture for Egyptians. Czech architect Martin Roubik was a member of the Norwegian team that designed the monumental library in Alexandria. This month, Mr Roubik and his colleagues won an award as part of a project to design the new Grand Egyptian Museum, announced by the government of Egypt and UNESCO.
An overwhelming 2,500 teams from over one hundred countries sent their entries to Egypt - projects for a state-of-the-art museum complex to be built on a vast area close to the Giza pyramids. The international jury, chaired by Korean architect Jong Soung Kimm, hand-picked twenty of the best projects, among them the work of Czech architect Martin Roubik and his assistant Regina Loukotova, who described to me what their project actually looks like.
"Everything is underground. We protect the inner spaces from direct sunlight and from daylight as well. Actually, if you ask Egyptologists or museologists, [they will tell you that] these particular collections don't need daylight because the pieces came from underground, so our philosophy was to put them back underground. We also think that the running costs of the museum will be very low, like air-conditioning and so on. Because the project is situated on the edge of the desert, we tried to protect the museum from the sand as there are sand-storms. That's another advantage, I would say. And I think we also somehow reacted to, or were inspired by Egyptian architecture."
As architect Regina Loukotova said she believed the Czech project had many more advantages over the other plans. However, in the end, it was only awarded one of the seven High Honourable Mentions, and the international jury awarded the first prize to an Irish team, lead by architect Shih Fu Peng. The second prize went to an Austrian team and the third went to Italy.
The decision was made but there is still a chance that the investor, the Egyptian government, might not choose the winning project and instead go for a more cost-effective one. Architect Martin Roubik.
"I don't think the results of the competition will be changed but the Egyptian government, after all, is the client who has ordered this competition and the jury to judge it and it seems now they are not really happy about the results, it's up to them to find out if they want to do something about it. And I think they should think very carefully about choosing the right project."
