Bucharest Court rules decision to cancel History Museum restoration competition is not legitimate

The Bucharest Court of Appeal decided that the cancellation of the international architecture competition to refurbish and modernize the National History Museum of Romania (MNIR) is not legal, bpv Grigorescu Ștefănică law firm announced. The competition had been cancelled by MNIR because of “the alleged inconsistency between the participation rules drafted in Romanian and their English translation,” the law firm said. MNIR’s restoration, needed because of the degradation state of the building, amounts to some EUR 90 million. The value of the design services stands at approximately EUR 4.6 million, VAT included, while the investment is of EUR 89 million, without VAT, according to museum estimates quoted by Hotnews.ro. The architecture studio Starh was awarded the implementation of the design phase of the restoration project. However, MNIR canceled the competition, which it organized in a partnership with the Romanian Order of Architects (OAR). The architecture studio Starh challenged the annulment decision with the help of bpv Grigorescu Ștefănică. The law firm obtained a favorable decision for Starh by which the Bucharest Court of Appeal decided that the cancellation of the competition is not legal. The court decision is final and requires MNIR to resume the awarding procedure and reopen the negotiation phase, the law firm said. The museum said that, in Romanian, the competition theme mentioned that the space of the building’s interior court needed to be completely covered, but in the English translation, it was mentioned that the space of the court can be completely or partially covered, Hotnews.ro reported. The museum argued that both the jury and the contestants who read the English version were misled, since the institution’s request was that the interior court was covered. The museum said the translation of the contest documents was the responsibility of OAR. In their turn, OAR said the museum agreed with the competition theme but the purpose of an architecture competition is to find the best solution and not to implement the solution given by the museum, Hotnews.ro reported. In April of this year, a court ruled in favor of MNIR but the decision was not final. The bpv Grigorescu Ștefănică team working on the case was led by partners Daniel Ştefănică and Anca Albulescu, and included managing associate Raluca Marcu and associates Şerban Dumitrescu and Oana Cotoară. editor@romania-insider.com