The competition for Secondary City Centre of Sofia

The jury selected the design of Dominique Perrault, and the discussions on the issues brought to the foreground by this competition, as well as the deliberation on the projects, continue.

The competition brought four world-renowned architects to Sofia and made society talk about architecture, which is very rare in this country. Right after it was announced, the competition was criticized by the Union of Architects in Bulgaria (UAB) for the excessively high participation threshold which practically excluded the Bulgarian design offices. The Chairman of the Union did not agree to become a member of the jury, and UAB organized an architectural workshop – a kind of parallel competition – on the same topic.
Six teams reached the second stage of the competition: Foster+Partners – United Kingdom; Zaha Hadid Architects – United Kingdom; Dominique Perrault Architecture – France; Massimiliano Fuksas Architects – Italy; Conglomerate G-3 – Bulgaria, represented by architect Georgi Stoilov, and Consortium ADAIS Project – Bulgaria – comprising 19 architecture and engineering offices. The international jury included the architects: professor Helle Jul (Denmark) – she chaired the jury, Brian Spencer (USA), Paul Andreu (France), Kiyonori Kikutake (Japan), Petar Dikov, Chief Architect of Sofia, Lyubomir Pelovski, UAB, Mityo Videlov, Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works, and correspondent member prof. Atanas Kovachev. The jury selected the design of Dominique Perrault.
Abitare continues the deliberation on the projects with comments of architects and journalists..

Hristo Genchev:

I could not suppress my feeling that the members of the jury were afraid of a Bulgarian success. I realized that we were not going to hear some serious arguments in support of the choices made. I was also perplexed by the lack of confidence in the assessment of the members of the jury Petar Dikov, Lyubomir Pelovski and Mityo Videlov. For decades now, they have been unchangingly at the head of the architectural authority in Sofia and Bulgaria. Why, however, do they impose some inferiority complexes onto Bulgarian architects?
The “lesson in urban planning” which the world-renowned architects delivered would not even leave a mark in Bulgarian urban planning, not because “we, Bulgarians (?!), have the propensity to prefer to commensurate ourselves to those smaller than us, of small scale which has been especially chosen by us” (Dikov), but because what was presented is not urban planning. It is toying with monumental shapes. I would call it “total design”. It is neither urban planning, nor architecture. It exudes (significant, even convertible - Hadid) attractiveness, but this expression is not architectural. It rather reminds of a giant ikebana (Fuksas). The charm of such a city-shape-play is that if successful, it should remain unique. If it is repeated (by disciples or admirers), it turns into something grotesque. But one thing is for sure – this play of shapes, to use the words of a namesake of mine “in wasting resources is even commensurate to war“. One can already hear opinions that the lack of connection to the Underground system is a remediable (!) mistake (5 km х 100 million levs), that quarter of a billion levs would be invested in the local infrastructure (sewage, water, communications, electricity), in preparation for the coming of an investor who would be a true modern Nabab (an oil or maybe a gas one?).
But let’s go back to today’s urban planning of Sofia. SCCentre could not replace the present-day issues of the city. The actual centre of Sofia is overwhelmed by neglect. Sites of previous fires, blasts, collapsed buildings, inappropriate use of public spaces, checkpoints with barriers, destruction of the historic substance, debasing of façades, improvised pavements, religious services in the open, ubiquitous parking lots. The garbage bins on the pavements, or even on the roadway! The infrastructure in the centre is in a wretched state. And that would become even more obvious after the whole diameter of the Underground system is completed. Vitosha Mountain, sports and entertainment will become more accessible, more people will head to or settle (spontaneously or forever) in the traditional city centre and near the Underground stations. The distribution of public sites would be changed. The whole central tram network, the automobile route transport services and the organization of the traffic (we do not need parking lots, but more zones for cyclists and pedestrians!) would be changed.
And today we are focused on the SCCentre.