BPV Grigorescu Stefanica has persuaded the Romanian Court of Appeal to re-open an international architecture competition titled ""The New MNIR" after it had been cancelled by the director of the National History Museum of Romania.
According to bpv Grigorescu Stefanica, "the decision to cancel the competition, adopted after the winner of the competition was nominated, was motivated by the alleged inconsistency between the participation rules drafted in Romanian and their English translation which would justify the annulment of the competition and the invalidation of the winner voted by an international jury working under the aegis of the International Union of Architects. The winner of the competition, the architecture studio Starh ... challenged the annulment decision with the help of a bpv Grigorescu Ștefanica team led by Partners Daniel Stefanica and Anca Albulescu and which included Managing Associate Raluca Marcu and Associates Serban Dumitrescu and Oana Cotoara."
According to the firm, the Bucharest Court of Appeal decided that the cancellation of the competition was not legal, "thus unlocking the EUR 90+ million investment." The court decision is final and requires the National History Museum of Romania to resume the awarding procedure and reopen the negotiation phase.
"We are happy to have succeeded in proving that the decision to cancel the competition was not legitimate, that we participated in a fair contest, and that we won observing the spirit of the brief and the relevant circumstances," said Iulia Stanciu, Professor Doctor of Architecture and Starh founder. "We thank the lawyers for their efforts of understanding and pleading for an architectural competition where the solution proposed in the winning project can sometimes contradict the expectations that the brief may seem to imply. With this excellent team of lawyers and through this act of justice, not only our studio, but also the institution of the competition in Romania, we believe, is rehabilitated both in our own eyes and in those of the world. We would like to go back now to carrying out the project for the New National History Museum of Romania."
"It is a pleasure to be part of projects that have such high stakes as the restoration of one of the most valuable museums of Romania," stated bpv Grigorescu Stefanica Partner Daniel Stefanica. "We are grateful that Starh entrusted us with the representation and that, through our joint efforts, we managed to put back on track a process that was already quite unwieldy, and which should have started long ago. We hope that we will all be able to enjoy soon enough a modernized museum at the highest international standards."
Image Source: flickr.com
