Oskar House, Kamenná Lhota Author: MgA. Jan Žaloudek, JAN ŽALOUDEK ARCHITECT
“The Oskar House sparked perhaps the most discussion among the expert jury of all the overall winners in the ten-year history of the award. It is truly very striking. In the end, the jury highlighted and commended the confident decision to build the structure in this form. It evokes strong emotions, but that is actually perfectly fine in architecture,” says Petr Tschakert, founder and director of the competition.
The Oskar House stands in the South Bohemian village of Kamenná Lhota, in a garden that once belonged to the local castle. It was named after composer Oskar Nedbal, who composed the operetta *Polish Blood* right there in the castle. The strong genius loci is enhanced by the remains of a Baroque barn, centuries-old trees, and a stone wall that borders the property, which opens onto a picturesque rural landscape.
Oskar House, Kamenná Lhota Designer: MgA. Jan Žaloudek, JAN ŽALOUDEK ARCHITEKT
JURY STATEMENT BY THE 19-MEMBER INTERNATIONAL JURY:
“The jury commended the innovative approach, unconventionality, and courage in drawing inspiration from sacred and folk architecture. It particularly emphasized respect for the surrounding buildings and the landscape, as well as a sense of grand architectural gesture.”
Traditionally, a different designer is commissioned each year to create the award trophies for the finalists and the overall winner of the Interior of the Year competition. These are always original works that express the designer’s unique perspective on the theme of interior design. For the tenth anniversary edition of the awards, designers Michaela Tomišková and Jakub Janďourek, founders of the Dechem studio, took on this role. In creating the awards, they followed in the footsteps of designers from previous years, such as Rony Plesl, Václav Mlynář, Boris Klimek, Jakub Pollág, and Kateřina Handlová. The awards were produced by the Bomma glassworks from broken shards of defective products, which were reassembled and thus given a second life.
The designers of the award for the 10th anniversary edition of Interior of the Year are Michaela Tomišková and Jakub Janďourek from the Dechem studio. The award was produced by the Bomma glassworks from upcycled and remelted glass shards.
In accordance with the rules, all competing interiors must always have been completed in the previous year. Over the course of ten editions, the award has thus become, de facto, a kind of regular study of the development and state of interiors in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, always for the given year. An incredible 1,862 outstanding projects have participated in the award over the past ten years. Thanks to these ten years, Interior of the Year has the longest history of any interior design award in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
The expert jury, led by the emeritus rector of the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague—architect and designer Prof. Acad. Arch. Jiří Pelcl, Dr. h.c.—selected from among 222 interiors by Czech and Slovak architects and interior designers.
The international expert jury included, for example, Ilja Skoček, a member of the board of the Slovak Chamber of Architects; architect and designer Michaela Tomišková; Italian interior designer Danile Daminelli; Danish architect Rasmus Kruse Jensen; Italian architect Daniela Colli; designer Jakub Pollág; and many others. In addition to architects and interior designers, the jury also included prominent Czech figures with exceptional achievements in the field of visual culture, such as film director and producer Hana Třeštíková and visual artist Jan Kaláb. The jury’s interdisciplinary diversity is intentional. It aims to ensure that the results more fully reflect interior design as a multidisciplinary field, rather than merely an architectural one.
This year also marked the second presentation of the FOREIGN MEDIA AWARD, for which a number of representatives from leading magazines and online publications across several European Union countries cast their votes, and some of them personally presented the award in this category.
Winner of the Foreign Media Award: Vila Silenta, Prague Authors: Mgr. Eva Raiser, Ing. arch. Kateřina Grohová, SOLO PRAHA
The tenth annual competition was held under the patronage of the Chairwoman of the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic, the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic, the Prague City Hall, and the mayor of the Prague 7 district.
