COMPETITIONS

Throughout the 20th century professional architectural competitions were a constant
source of debate and controversy among those in the discipline. They were used as
pedagogical tools, as means for determining excellence, as a method for awarding
commissions, as battlegrounds of opposing ambitions, and as political tools.
Competitions can discover new talent, challenge contemporary ideas about architecture,
and involve the general public in a dialogue. As an institution within the practice of
architecture, they are also capable of reflecting contemporary or predicting future trends.
The most common types of architectural design competitions are idea competitions
and project competitions. Project competitions imply an intention and a commitment to
build, whereas idea competitions are promoted as theoretical exercises in design intended
primarily to promote discussion and attract awareness to a particular issue. An idea
competition is most beneficial for dealing with problems with a broad social interest,
exploring different ways of using a building material, bringing attention to the potentials
of a site, or examining new approaches to a particular building form or type.
Competitions can also be open, limited, or invited and conducted in one or two stages.
Open competitions are used for selecting an architect or firm for a real project. They can
be done in one or two stages, and the client retains the right to modify the winning
design. In the case of a two-stage competition, the purpose of the first stage is to narrow
the field, and the winner is selected in the second stage. The benefit of a two-stage
process is the opportunity for the architect to engage the client in a dialogue, an option
not usually available in an open competition. Disadvantages of the open competition
process include the risk of choosing an inexperienced architect, the possibility of
receiving far too many submissions for the jury to evaluate adequately, the expense borne
by the individual firms or architects who participate, and the selection of a project that is
not economically viable to build.
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In the case of an invited or limited competition, a few architects or firms are
commissioned to submit designs and customarily are paid an honorarium for their
participation. This type of competition is often used when it is important for the sponsor
to obtain a limited number of solutions from qualified competitors.
Often, one of the first steps a sponsor takes in the competition process is the selection
of a professional adviser to act as a competition consultant. The adviser, a qualified
professional, is paid by the sponsor to advise on every aspect related to staging the
competition. The professional adviser is expected to act as an impartial liaison between
the client or sponsor and the competitors and to ensure that the competition is executed in
a fair and equitable manner for both the client and the competitors. The adviser also
assists the jury in their understanding of the competition program.
In an effort to ensure an open and fair competition process, many countries have
adopted competition regulations and guidelines. The American Institute of Architects
(AIA) issued its “Guidelines for Architectural Design Competitions” in 1976 (a revision
of its 1972 code, which required AIA approval and participation in competitions). The
AIA document is divided into the following seven parts: General Advantages and
Disadvantages of Competitions, Definitions and Classifications, General Principles for
the Conduct of Competitions, The Role of the Professional Adviser and Other Details for
the Conduct of Competitions, The Jury and Judging Guidelines, Costs and Time, and
Suggested Form of Architectural Design Competition Program.
For international competitions there is the “Regulations for International
Competition in Architecture and Town Planning” of the Union
Internationale des Architectes (UIA), published in 1974. The stated
purpose of the UIA regulations is to outline the principles on which
international competitions are based. The regulations are divided into two
basic parts. The first consists of 51 articles divided into the following
sections: General Provisions; Professional Adviser; Drawing Up the
Conditions; UIA Approval; Registration of Competitors; Prizes,
Honoraria, and Mentions; Insurance; Copyright and Right of Ownership;
and Exhibition of Entries and Return of Designs. The second part includes
instructions and recommendations to promoters.
Chicago Tribune Tower (1922)
One of the most significant 20th-century competitions was for the Chicago Tribune’s new office tower.
An announcement for the open, international competition appeared in major American
and European newspapers, in professional journals, and in the Trib une’s national and international
editions in June 1922.
In a sense this was a two-stage competition, as in addition to the open entries, ten
architects were invited to participate for a fee of $2000 each. The invited architects were
to be judged with the ten best projects chosen from the more than 200 submissions
received, the majority of which were from the United States. From this group of 20, three
were to be awarded prize money of $50,000, $20,000, and $10,000. The composition of
Entries A–F 539
the jury (one architect, Alfred Granger, AIA, and four members of the Tribune Building
Corporation) was a source of criticism by the AIA, which felt that the jury was heavily
weighted on the side of the layperson.
From the outset the competition was highly publicized and extremely well
documented. At the conclusion of the competition, the Tribune sponsored a touring exhibition of
the perspective renderings to universities, public institutions, and office buildings. The
publicity was intended to promote the Tribune as a newspaper committed to such lofty values as
public education. In fact, during the period that the competitors were working on their
submissions, the Tribune ran a series of weekly articles on the subject of historic and modern
architecture that might have influenced some of the participants.
An important outcome of this competition was the exposure of a mass
audience to modern architecture during the exhibition’s 27-city tour of the
United States and Canada. It was also a demonstration of the benefit of the
competition process even to the so-called losers, as they profited from the
exposure as well. In fact, it is often noted that Eliel Saarinen’s secondplace
design (the last entry received) was regarded more highly than the
more traditional, winning design of Howells and Hood.
League of Nations (1926)
The open, international competition of 1926 for the League of Nations Building in
Geneva is generally regarded as a disaster in the history of 20th-century competitions.
The building was intended to symbolize the effort to achieve greater international
harmony and world peace, objectives that were to be reflected in the architecture.
Politically charged from the outset, the initial jury of six men represented six different
countries. Soon the jury grew to nine, with the result that three additional countries were
represented (all Western European).
When the jury evaluated the 377 entries, they were unable to come to consensus on a
winner. Most of the designs were deemed too expensive to build, and only Le Corbusier
and Pierre Jeanneret had stayed within the budget. Problems with their drawings kept
them from being named the winners. As a result each of the nine jury members chose a
winner and two runners-up. None of the 27 architects nominated received more than one
vote. Nine architects representing five different countries shared first prize. Immediately,
Le Corbusier embarked on an unsuccessful campaign to convince the jury that his design
should win.
The League of Nations intervened at this point, and a second round was scheduled
with five jury members who did not represent any of the prize-winning countries. They
too found the winners’ design unsuitable. However, two voted for Le Corbusier and two
for Vago. As a compromise four of the winners (all traditionalists) were commissioned to
produce another new design.
In the meantime a sizable donation from the Rockefellers necessitated the
search for a larger building site. When one was located, permission
depended on the signature of Hélène de Madrot, the host of the 1928
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meeting where the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne
(CIAM) was founded. She said that her permission was contingent on all
the prize winners having the chance to submit new designs for the site. In
addition, Le Corbusier would be allowed to clarify his design. Only Le
Corbusier and Erich zu Putlitz took advantage of the opportunity, yet the
jury decided to stand by their earlier decision. This competition is
generally regarded as an example of the battle between the modernists and
the traditionalists as well as a competition plagued by nationalistic
allegiances.
Sydney Opera House (1956)
Despite such problems as drastically escalating construction costs, conflicting political
ambitions, and the fact that the winning architect ultimately abandoned the project, the
Sydney Opera House is today the much admired symbol of both Sydney and Australia.
The competition was initiated by J.J.Cahill, prime minister of New South Wales, in an
attempt to garner votes for the Labour Party.
In 1956 an open international competition was organized. Two hundred and thirtythree
designs, all line drawings as required by the program, were submitted. The jury
included Gobden Parkes, head of the Public Works Department, and three architects:
J.L.Martin of Cambridge University, Henry Ingham Ashworth of Australia, and Eero
Saarinen of the United States.
The winner, Jørn Utzon, had worked for and been influenced by both
Alvar Aalto and Frank Lloyd Wright. Previous to the competition, his
projects had consisted primarily of single-family residences. His
inexperience became evident when he attempted to solve the problem of
the construction of the roof shell structure. Eventually, under time
constraints and political pressure, he resigned in 1966, relinquishing the
project to Australians Peter Hall, David Littlemore, and Lionel Todd.
Boston City Hall (1962)
This open, two-stage competition for a new city hall and surrounding public open spaces
was sponsored by the Government Center Commission of the City of Boston. The
competition was announced in October 1961. Deadlines for the preliminary stage were 17
January 1962 and for the final stage 25 April 1962. The jury announced their decision on
4 May 1962. This competition is generally considered a successful example of an open
competition because of its extraordinarily complete program and the establishment in
1958 of the Government Center Commission, which included representatives from the
government, the business community, the architectural profession, and the building
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trades. This commission was charged with the task of developing the program for the
competition.
Although the actual building itself has been a source of criticism by its
users and others, the competition was exemplary for its fair and
democratic urban practice for design. There was no evidence of political
favoritism, and the competition provided the opportunity for a young,
relatively unknown firm, Kallmann, McKinnell, and Knowles, to give the
city an extraordinary design. More important, the Boston City Hall
competition restored faith in the competition process in general.
Centre Nationale d’Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou (1971)
This competition is notable for its effect on architecture in general. With 681 proposals,
at the time it was the most widely entered in the history of architectural design
competitions. Officially commissioned by the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, the project
was actually initiated by French President Georges Pompidou, who wanted to be
remembered after the end of his seven-year term of office. The program was for a
complex that could accommodate all forms of art and, perhaps more important, draw
large numbers of visitors.
Among others the jury included architects Philip Johnson, Oscar Niemeyer, and Jørn
Utzon. When it came time for the jury to assess the projects, Utzon was absent for health
reasons. To maintain the international character of the jury, he was replaced by Herman
Liebaers, Belgian director of the Royal Library in Brussels, and not by the original
reserve jury member, French architect Henri-Pierre Maillard. In a nearly unanimous vote,
the design of Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers was selected as the winner. The entry was
cited for its use of only half the available site, the flexibility of the interior, and the
transparency of the exterior.
Unfortunately, the enthusiasm of the jury was not shared by the public. Protests began
as soon as the jury decision was announced and lasted for several years. A group of
French architects even went so far as to attempt, through legal channels, to prevent the
design from ever being built. That they were unsuccessful in these attempts is a tribute to
President Pompidou, who himself was less than enamored of the project initially yet
stood by the expertise of his jury. The jury was correct in noting that architecture was
“entering a phase the effects of which will not be confined to France but which will make
themselves felt throughout the world.”
The competition was to have a lasting effect on architecture in Paris. Expanding on
Pompidou’s example, when François Mitterand became president of France in 1981, he
initiated a series of competitions that resulted in the Grands Projets (Grand Projects).
Although architectural design competitions remain a source of controversy, they
continue to be held because they provide many benefits despite drawbacks such as the
cost of the competition to the client and to the profession, the possibility of selecting an
inexperienced architect, and the absence of a dialogue between the client and the
architect. They are an excellent source for discovering new talent and provide a venue for
exploring new methods for conceiving architecture. They are usually able to maintain the
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focus on design rather than on other aspects of the architectural process. Competitions
can also stimulate a public dialogue.
Although the major 20th-century architectural design competitions are too numerous
to mention, many significant ones include Stockholm Town Hall (1902–05); Helsinki
Railway Station (1903); Peace Palace, The Hague (1905); Nebraska State Capitol (1919);
the Chicago Tribune Tower (1922); the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C. (1922);
League of Nations, Geneva (1926–27); Palace of the Soviets, Moscow (1931); Jefferson
National Expansion Memorial, Washington, D.C. (1946); Termini Station, Rome (1947);
Sydney Opera House (1956–57); Brasilia Urbanization Plan (1956–57); Toronto City
Hall (1958); FDR Memorial, Washington, D.C. (1960); Lawrence Hall of Science,
University of California, Berkeley (1962); Congress Building, Kyoto (1962); University
of California Arts Center, Berkeley (1965); NASA Kennedy Space Center, Cape
Canaveral, Florida (1965); San Francisco Civic Center Plaza, California (1965);
Amsterdam Town Hall (1967); Yale University Mathematics Building, New Haven,
Connecticut (1970); American Pavilion, Osaka World’s Fair (1970); Georges Pompidou
National Center of Art and Culture (1971); High Court of Australia, Canberra (1972–73);
Roosevelt Island Housing, New York (1975); Minnesota II (Capitol Building Annex,
1976–77); Park de la Villette, Paris (1976); Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank (1979); La
Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, Paris (1980); Vietnam Veterans Memorial,
Washington, D.C. (1980–81); Grande Arche de La Défense, Paris (1982); Opéra Bastille,
Paris (1982); Ministry of Finance, Paris (1982); The Peak, Hong Kong (1982); Carré
d’Art, Nimes (1984); New National Theater, Tokyo (1984); Shonandai Culture Center,
Fujisawa (1985); Metropolitan Hall, Tokyo (1985); Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York
(1986); City Hall, The Hague (1986); Tokyo Opera House (1986); Houston Museum of
Fine Arts, Texas (1987); Media Park, Cologne (1987); Jewish Museum, Berlin (1988);
Kansai Airport, Japan (1988); Center for Japanese Culture, Paris (1989); Chicago Public
Library, Illinois (1991); the Reichstag, Berlin (1993); and the McCormick Tribune
Campus Center at Illinois Institute of Technology (1998).