During the last week, architects and designers can submit their work to the Interior of the Year competition. The jury will assess the projects for 2023 and select the winners, who will be announced in May at DOX in Prague. According to director Peter Tschakert, a lot has changed since the competition was founded in 2015. Design has ceased to be the privilege of the rich and has made its way even where no one wanted to invest in it before.
Historically, the first absolute winner of the competition, which is in its ninth year mapping the development of public and private interiors in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, was a restaurant Café Záhorský by architects Magdalena Rochová and Radek Jarousek. According to Tschakert, the project reflects the atmosphere and mood in the company, which in 2015 began to appreciate modern gastro establishments, preferring their calmness and taste over noisy environments with visual smog or monotonous equipment.
“It was this period that marked the beginning of a significant focus on design by restaurant owners in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Previously, with few exceptions, restaurateurs were not willing to invest in non-unified tailor-made design. Fortunately, the situation has changed, so today interior design is just as decisive for customer comfort as the quality of services,” thinks the director of the Institute of Apartment Design, which organizes the competition.
Absolute winner of the Interior of the Year competition for the period 2015 Café Záhorský in Prague’s Dejvice. The author of the interior is Magdaléna Rochová and Radek Jaroušek. | Photo: Aktuálně.cz/Archive of the Interior of the Year
In times of crisis and war in Ukraine, time-tested materials win
Only projects designed by professionals from the field apply for the Interior of the Year award. According to Tschakert, the best private projects, such as apartments or restaurants, stand out by not following classic trends. It reflects timelessness, a well-thought-out context and an honest dialogue with the investor:
“The socio-economic climate is also reflected in interior design. In times of prosperity and the absence of a significant sense of threat, investors approach the rawness of surface materials much more willingly, such as recognized concrete, structures made of Roxor wire and the like. On the contrary, in times of social conflict, as surface materials are more often found in unvarnished wood, natural stone or ceramics. People turn to what is tested and known. It is anchoring in a certain certainty,” says the art historian.
At the time of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the judges of the competition, the quality of the projects and the internal environment increased by leaps and bounds. People spent more time at home thinking about how they felt. “An unsatisfactory interior is like a prison, but when we like our home, we take it as a refuge,” thinks Tschakert, adding that, especially in recent years, material truth has been winning in private realizations.
“Natural and natural materials, whether smooth or raw, prevail in interiors for two reasons: they can age well and, compared to imitations, they are repairable and therefore sustainable. They are also friendly to a person’s psychological well-being. When we touch natural wood, which it is untreated or only provided with wax, it has a positive, even therapeutic effect on us,” he explains.
The winners of the ninth edition of the Interior of the Year competition will be announced again this year at the end of the international design and architecture congress Living Forum in the Center for Contemporary Art DOX. The day-long festival consists of a series of lectures by foreign guests on the topic “Identity of the European Space”. See in the gallery which projects have succeeded in previous years.
