VISEGRAD GROUP
Cooperation of chambers and associations of civil engineers from the countries of the Visegrad Group
Cooperation between the countries of the so-called Visegrad Group has a rich history. As early as 1335, the kings of three countries – Hungary Charles Robert of Anjou, Bohemia John of Luxembourg and Poland Casimir the Great – met at Visegrad Castle.
Continuing the historical contacts between Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary, on the initiative of the Hungarian President Arpad Göncz, the President of Hungary, Poland – Lech Wałęsa and Czechoslovakia – Vaclav Havel and the Prime Minister of Hungary – Jozsef Antall met at Visegrad Castle in 1991, inaugurating the so-called Visegrad Triangle. After the formation of the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993, the so-called Visegrad Four (V4) was finally established.
In 1994, cooperation between chambers and associations of civil engineers from the Visegrad Group countries also began. Initially there were six organizations: Slovak Chamber of Civil Engineers (SKSI), Slovak Association of Civil Engineers (SZSI), Czech Chamber of Chartered Engineers and Technicians (ČKAIT), Czech Association of Construction Engineers (ČSSI), Hungarian Chamber of Engineers (MMK) and Polish Association of Civil Engineers and Technicians (PZITB). Following the establishment of the Polish Chamber of Civil Engineers (PIIB), it joined the ranks of already established organizations within the V4 Group in 2003.
Representatives of these organizations meet annually, each time in a different country. The first meeting was held in November 1994 in Bratislava, Slovakia, SKSI and SZSI were the organizers.
PZITB and PIIB (since 2003) were the organizers of: 2nd meeting (1995 in Krynica), 6th (1999 in Kraków), 10th (2003 in Kraków), 14th (2007 in Serock), 18th (2011 in Wrocław), 22nd (2015 in Gdańsk) and 26th (2019 in Łódź). During these meetings, scientific and technical conferences were often held on various topics related to construction.
These events are also an opportunity to: exchange experiences and views on the current situation of chambers and construction unions, to discuss construction issues in individual V4 Group countries, as well as an opportunity to present a common position on the forum of EU countries.
Another example of cooperation between construction organizations of the V4 Group countries is a series of four volumes of books/albums entitled “Technical Monuments of the Visegrad Four Countries”. In 1998, at the 5th meeting of the Visegrad Group in Smolenice, Slovakia, it was decided to issue a joint publication describing construction objects that constitute the material culture of the V4 countries, which are also monuments to the engineering thought of our predecessors. The first volume of the album was published on the initiative of ČKAIT (the Czech Republic) in 2000. In 2004, the publisher of the second volume of the book was MMK (Hungary). The third volume was published by PZITB and PIIB, and its presentation took place in September 2007 in Krakow, during the opening ceremony of the new headquarters of the Malopolska District Chamber of Civil Engineers. SKSI and SZSI (Slovakia) were the publishers of the fourth volume of the book, which was presented at the 17th meeting in 2010 in Zuberec, Slovakia.
In each volume, each country presented six objects – technical monuments, which, due to their often unique character, are works of engineering and deserve special attention. Each object is described in four languages of the V4 countries and in English. In 2011, additionally, ČKAIT and ČSSI published the atlas “Technical Monuments of the Visegrad Countries”, which presents 24 historical objects from each of these countries, included in the four previously published volumes.
During the 17th meeting in Zuberec, it was decided to establish a new, joint publishing project. This time the edition of the book was supposed to deal with modern engineering objects of the Visegrad Group countries, and to present examples of modern construction realized in the V4 Group countries after 1990. It was assumed that the principles of elaboration of individual objects would be similar to those of the previously published books, and they would cover six from each country.
The first volume of the new series was published in 2021, and Czech Chamber of Chartered Engineers and Technicians (ČKAIT) and Czech Association of Construction Engineers (ČSSI) were its publishers. The second volume was published in 2014 by Polish Association of Civil Engineers and Technicians and Polish Chamber of Civil Engineers. The third volume which was published in 2016, was prepared by the Slovak Chamber of Civil Engineers (SKSI) and the Slovak Association of Civil Engineers (SZSI). And the latest fourth volume, whose publisher was the Bomek Regional Chamber of Engineering in Miskolc, was published in 2018.
In four volumes of this series, such buildings from Poland have been shown that stand out particularly in terms of the architectural and construction solutions adopted not only in our country but also beyond its borders.
The meetings which have been organized for thirty years (the event in 2020 did not take place due to the covid-19 related epidemic situation in Europe), are an opportunity to exchange views on the current situation of building unions and chambers, and to discuss construction issues in various countries from the Visegrad Group. The meetings also enable the exchange of magazines and publications related to the activities of these organizations, and to learn about interesting construction objects, cultural and artistic monuments. Contacts established during these meetings are continued throughout the year on the occasion of various events and celebrations to which delegations of these organizations are invited.
The source: „20 years of the Polish Chamber of Civil Engineers” (2022)
Written by: Zygmunt Rawicki
