Local architects have won their battle to ease tough regulations for the architectural competition for the design of the new Cyprus Museum which they said made it virtually impossible for a local architect to be chosen.

The decision was taken yesterday after a meeting between the Cyprus Architects’ Association and the Communications Ministry.

“They [the Communications Ministry] decided to revoke the competition and to re-announce it without such extreme demands,” said president of the association, Constantinos Constanti. “We want to send out a big well done to the minister,” he said, adding that the ministry had decided to adopt all of the association’s requests.

Cypriot architects had been up in arms over what they deemed as very restricting conditions to enter the design competition. The announcement for the opening of the international competition was made at the beginning of May by the Communications Ministry.

The original criteria stated that the architect had to have already built a museum worth €20 million and a similar project worth €40 million. The competition also took place in one phase which meant that a complete project would have to be delivered in one go, something which Constanti claimed would cost around €70,000. This would make the project financially difficult for many architectural offices.

According to Constanti the new competition will adopt all of the conditions that the association wanted in the first place. Instead of the competition being in one phase it will take place in two phases which will be more financially viable he said. A two-phase project involves submitting ideas first which are then evaluated and judged, instead of having to submit a completed project. It would also exclude the previous provision that an architect had to have already built a museum worth €20 million and completed a similar project worth €40 million.

In order to attract as many architects as possible the competition will be advertised on a website too.