Architecture studio UNDRA has been ordered to remove various photographs of buildings in Reykjavík from its website and Facebook with daily fines of 10,000 ISK for each posting of images. In addition, the salon must pay damages and court costs for the publication of images that have already taken place.
Judgement on this subject was pronounced yesterday in the district court of Reykjavík. UNDRA must pay the architect Pálmar Kristmundsson and the studio PR Architects 400,000 ISK in damages and 2 million ISK in legal costs. The case has therefore become very costly for the architect’s office and will be even more so if it does not stop the aforementioned image displays.
The background to the case is that the three founders of UNDRA are all former employees of PR Architects founded by Pálmar Kristmundsson. The design of the buildings in question was a joint project of the PR studio arkitektar, and the studio acquired the copyright on what remains after the retirement of the three architects. The judge fully agreed with the preparation of the case by PR Architects and Pálmar, and it was considered beyond doubt that they owned the copyright in the works without dispute. Valid only if all three architects were involved in the design of the work and participated in it.
The buildings in question are: Building T4 at Hafnartorgi in Reykjavík, Norðurbakki 7–9 in Hafnarfjörður, Laugavegur 4–6 in Reykjavík, Lyngháls 4 in Reykjavík, Alvotech Building at Sæmundargatu 15–19 in Reykjavík, and Building H2 in Höfðargátu, Katrinartun 4 in Reykjavik.
