BIK didn't explain much: The Mystery of Selecting the Big Mosque Project

The Great Mosque in Pristina was launched on October 8, 2012. Officially its construction has not yet begun. But all this has been done because of Kosovo's own Islamic Community. A prolonged and untransparent process has brought the situation to the point where everything can turn to zero. That's why.

As the debate on the construction of the Great Mosque in Pristina was rekindled again by the Islamic Community itself, which took advantage of a meeting with Shpend Ahmeti and Albin Kurtin in the quality of Vetevendosje leadership, to show that the “construction of the Mosque will begin very soon”, implying that the “le from the Comun” was a closed issue, is that BIC is the one that, through a process of no correct selection of the winning project, has created a mystery: How exactly was the project chosen in question?

Here's a chronology through dates and some questions that BIK never explained:

February 23, 2012: Pristina's Municipal Assembly approves the decision to give the location for the construction of New Mosque in Pristina.

As the debate on the construction of the Great Mosque in Pristina was rekindled again by the Islamic Community itself, which took advantage of a meeting with Shpend Ahmeti and Albin Kurtin in the quality of Vetevendosje leadership, to show that the “construction of the Mosque will begin very soon”, implying that the “le from the Comun” was a closed issue, is that BIC is the one that, through a process of no correct selection of the winning project, has created a mystery: How exactly was the project chosen in question?

Here's a chronology through dates and some questions that BIK never explained:

February 23, 2012: Pristina's Municipal Assembly approves the decision to give the location for the construction of New Mosque in Pristina.

October 8, 2012: Kosovo's Islamic Community places stones for construction of the Great Mosque in Pristina. The municipality had divided 81 gold of land in the neighbourhood “Ulpiana”, near the Great Post.

So BIK solemnly started building the Great Mosque without knowing what it would look like. At the time, BIK was not even close to launching procedures for the competition that would select the winning project.

December 10, 2012: Nearly a year after setting the stone-themel, the Kosovo Islamic Community opens the international competition for the Great Mosque project in Pristina.

February 13, 2013: The competition closes, 110 projects apply, but BIK criteria complete only 81 projects. BIK has also been forced to remove the criterion in which it had requested several escorts, such as locals, garages and apartments of 120 square metres for imam.

But BIK never explains how the remodel of the Mosque area has become and has not presented any evidence to the public whether the project has undergone changes, despite the fact that the debate on this issue has been opened several times over the years.

March 25, 2013: BIK exposes all draft proposals from 81 architect offices from 30 countries around the world. The opening exhibition at Hotel Grand remained open until 31 March, while also creating the possibility for the public to give his vote. Imam Ternava had promised at the opening of the exhibition that these votes would be taken into account.

But the Islamic Community has never shown or published what the public vote was like.

April 15, 2013: BIK releases the jury's announcement on its official page, which had failed to choose the first location. Instead, the jury had assessed two projects for second place and one for third.

The jury, consisting of 3 foreign architects -- Bosnian Amir Pasic, Turkish Ibrahim Numan, and Italian Attilio Petruqolli -- two Kosovo architects, Muhamet Morina and Yusuf Gepa -- as well as two representatives of the Islamic community Saber Bajgora and Naim Ternava ruled that none of the projects had deserved the first place. The reward for the first place was 25 thousand euros, for the second 15,000 and third place 10,000 euros.

BIK has never exactly explained why the jury has no first place for any of the projects. The two authors of the “2 projects would be invited to the Islamic Community's announcement. 1 PR22” and “102 5 AC” will accept the jury's suggestions, and they will pray if they agree to improve their project proposals within a month. On May 15th, the winner was scheduled to be declared. This was not possible.

In fact, ever since, the greatest mystery of all this project begins.

How was the winner chosen by the two projects?

BIK has never even announced the names of two companies in the final race, which was not designed to develop between the two companies. He only published their competition numbers.

BIK had not even published the name of the winning company. It's known to be Turkish. From Turkey comes the money for the construction of the Mosque, exactly from Turkey's Islamic Community. It has not even been clarified whether the price of 25 thousand euros for the first place was awarded to the winning company and that second place was taken from the other company.

BIK has also never shown exactly what it required additional from the two companies, and what the winning project had been chosen to do.

Even if you enter BIK's official website, there is no official announcement of the competition or the winner's announcement.

There is no jury decision that has decided on this project, nor what its priorities have been.

So the history of building the Great Mosque has lasted six years and still lasts.

And now when construction permits are being discussed, BIK will be obliged to explain before Pristina's Municipal Assembly. Then the entire process can be cleared up to select the winning project.