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The Architect of the Year 2022 Award won by Ladislav Kuba and Tomáš Pilař, authors of the reconstruction of the former university canteen into the seat of FHS CU

The award for outstanding contribution to architecture in the last five years – the Architect of the Year 2022 award – has been granted to two Brno architects, Ladislav Kuba and Tomáš Pilař, from the Kuba & Pilař architekti, authors of the reconstruction of the former university canteen Kolejí 17. listopadu into the new seat of the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University. Congratulations!

The award was organized for the fourteenth time by ABR, a. s., the goal being to showcase the meaning and  importance of architecture and its creators for our lives and for the cultural progress of society, and to support quality as well expert and civil commitment to architecture.

The prize, a glass sculpture, was handed over during a ceremony held in Prague on 21 September, 2022, by the last year’s winner, architect Petr Stolín, and by the chief media associate representative Jan Hejhálek, from the INTRO magazine. Hejhálek also presented a video of one of the last constructions by the award-winning architects, a reconstructed university canteen building for the purposes of FHS CU.

The great cooperation with the architects was praised by the Dean of FHS, Marie Pětová: „Considering the university canteen, a wonderful, magnificent space has been created, with clear concept and order, while being universal and open to its future users at the same time. The architecture is modest and truthful. As are the authors themselves – they are helpful and obliging and, for me, this has been a number of years of amazing cooperation.“ The work of the winners was also commented on in a video by architect Zdeněk Fránek, winner from 2020 himself: „The Kuba–Pilař duo has been a phenomenon in the Czech architecture. They were ones of the first to respond to minimalism and have been implementing it thouroughly. They keep winning tenders – they might have their great technique for that – and rightfully so. Their constructions are fine-tuned, up to the last detail. Their structures are unimposingly imposing, and monumental, yet financially manageable. The investors never regret. Their constructions are part of the history of Czech architecture.“

In 2021, the architects were awarded two other awards for the reconstruction of FHS: the Architects‘ Grand Prix – the National Prize awarded by the Society of Czech Architects, and the title of the Finalist of the Czech Prize for architecture by the Czech Chamber of Architects.