International Competitions in Architecture (ICARCH)

Thematic Dossier

text: Dan COMA

It all started in 2002. It was, I think, in November, I was in the office of the Order of Architects in Sibiu and, rather melancholic, rather depressed, I was contemplating the beautiful exhibition space that the Order had.
It was towards evening, the sun was setting. I approached Adelia, the secretary of the Order: "Adelia, let's launch an international architectural competition". She looked at me and asked: "What do you mean? Mr. Țibuleac, the president of the Sibiu branch, is not in the country, we haven't had a meeting, we don't have a budget, what kind of competition would you like to launch?".
I replied: "The name and theme could be: 'A HOUSE FOR ALBRECHT DÜRER'" (at that very time there was an exhibition of Dürer's engravings at the Brukenthal Museum).
Adelia, annoyed, replied: "How are we going to launch a competition for an artist who died more than 450 years ago?
I said, "Leave that to me". I went home and during the evening and the night I wrote the invitational text. The next morning I brought it to the Order and, at my insistence, Adelia sent it to those sites that were publishing architectural competitions at the time: Europaconcorsi, Death by Architecture and a few others. In 2002, the internet was not as developed as it is now.

We were amazed when, at the end of December, superb projects started to arrive from many countries, not sent digitally, as is done now, but printed or even hand-drawn, sent in tubes, etc. I still keep these tubes with stamps and stamps on them, superb proof of communication and connection.
And shortly after that we organized the exhibition: A HOUSE FOR ALBRECHT DÜRER. The OAR even managed to print large banners that were hung between the two fronts of the main street, Nicolae Balcescu, and on the broad facade of the building where the OAR's headquarters were located.
This exhibition and competition was a real celebration. Hard to imagine because, at that time, Romania was not even part of Europe, Sibiu was completely unknown, we didn't offer prizes, we didn't offer anything, we simply launched a theme of thought to the wider world and the wider world responded - from Australia, from New Zealand, from Germany, from Mexico, from the United States, from France, from Japan, etc.
Yes, it was wonderful. Lo and behold, there was/is room for idealism too. Here were architects and architecture students taking the time to work on a not at all pragmatic theme of ideas.
If Le Corbusier was right that architecture is a state of mind and not a profession, as he declared in 1936 in a letter to a group of young architects in South Africa, then an ideas competition for A HOUSE FOR ALBRECHT DURER can (and has) had its relevance.
We received over 30 entries, from many countries.

Then came ARCHITECTURE AS PRAYER - A HOUSE FOR ANDREI TARKOVSKI. The competition was inspired by the fact that I saw Elena Dulgheru's then published book "Film as Prayer: Andrei Tarkovsky" in the window of the theological bookstore on Mitropoliei Street in Sibiu.
In this competition we received over 80 projects from many countries. Another exhibition followed, even bigger and more visited. Suddenly, journalists in Sibiu started talking about "Sibiu - Capital of Architecture" in Romania, etc. Obviously, journalistic exaltations,
But the truth is that in a sleepy little town in 2002, these competitions really brought something new. All of a sudden, Sibiu suddenly became the destination of projects that exuded creative exuberance, most of them coming from very different countries, and some of them very far away. Again it was superb! It proved that art, at its essence, is communication. Yes, through these themes, we managed to break down the walls that separated us. Architects and students did not hesitate to send to Sibiu, by mail, with expenses and difficulties (for example, an architect from Spain had to pay 100 $ to Vamei in Bucharest, because Vamei, at the time, did not understand what the three panels he sent to Sibiu represented).
It was superb because this initiative, this action proved that wonderful things can be done without money, without meetings, without prizes, without practically nothing except an idea and an exaltation without which, I believe, creativity cannot exist.
Then came A NEW FAÇADE FOR SAN LORENZO. An ideas competition about the unfinished facade of the famous church built by Brunelleschi in Florence. Enthusiasm for the competition was so great that a young architect from Florence (then a designer at Gucci) called me at home to ask: "What's happening in Sibiu? Who are you? Is there a new movement in architecture that is emerging now?".
And another architect, also from Florence, Pietro Cavallo, was so enthusiastic that he offered to measure the facade of the Church of San Lorenzo for us, because I didn't know its concrete dimensions. Not only that, he wrote to me that a new 'breeze' was blowing from the East, that is, from Romania, from Sibiu, and that this 'breeze' was a joy and an encouragement to creativity for all of us.
Unfortunately, at this competition I was sabotaged even from within the Order... One day I asked the President for permission to send messages from the Order's e-mail address. One evening I noticed that the Order had received more than 100 messages, mostly from Japan, expressing the wish to participate in that competition. Messages that had not only not been replied to, but not even opened, and they had already been sent a month ago.

I was very disappointed. I immediately replied to those Japanese architects, but of course we were no longer taken seriously. Only a couple of them sent their projects, but it was very little, considering how broad their initial interest was.
Finding it inexplicable that I was not even told that we had received those many letters of interest, my disappointment took concrete forms. I decided to leave the country again, to return to the United States, although I would have liked to be able to continue in Sibiu what I had started.
I went to Chicago and opened a small art and architecture gallery, from where I continued to launch competitions of this kind. Since then, and from different places, I continued to launch international architectural competitions. I've launched many, over 100 so far, and I could have launched even more, because the invitational texts I wrote.
Although the generic theme is A HOUSE FOR..., I also launch competitions with a militant character, related to "current issues". Thus, I launched the competition A NEW TAHRIR SQUARE IN CAIRO - EGYPT, in which we asked competitors to imagine a new Tahrir Square architecturally inspired by the exhilarating revolution that took place a number of years ago, which unfortunately ended as it did.
We managed to have exhibitions in Madrid and Vienna with works submitted to these competitions.
If I had had a more adequate flair for Public Relations and looking for sponsors, probably all these competitions would have been much more successful than they were and are, because, as I said, I don't offer prizes, I don't offer practically anything, except for displaying the received projects on the ICARCH website. Nothing else. And yet architects and students continue to submit their work.
It was and still is beautiful. But it is a pity that the interest of Romanians is extremely low, if not almost non-existent. I believe that the reason for this lack of interest on the part of Romanians is the fact that Romanian architects and architecture students are not encouraged to think in terms that are not circumscribed by the "market", that is, in terms of a cultural idealism that I believe is vitally necessary.
This excessive pragmatism degrades architecture, I believe, forgetting what Le Corbusier said: "Architecture is a state of mind, not a profession".
Of course, the great test in architecture is construction, the confrontation with the elements, so to speak, but architecture is also metaphysical, not only physical. How else can we translate Le Corbusier's words "state of mind"?
And although I place great value on the "reality" of architecture, related to material, technologies, tectonics, function, etc., I think we could paraphrase Michelangelo by saying that "architettura est una cosa mentale".
In this sense all these competitions probably have, or can have, their relevance, and the fact that many architects and many students of Architecture continue to express their interest seems to prove me right.
I think the important contemporary architect Steven Holl was right when he urged us to "Remain idealistic! The soul needs the ideal more than the real". And Steven Holl is a North American architect who builds very much and very well.
I think we should not ignore his exhortation. In the absence of this idealism, I am very much afraid that we will collapse into irrelevance, despondency, cynicism or indifference.
Architecture, if indeed it is 'a state of mind', can sustain us in our most existentially difficult moments, but it cannot do so if we forget its essence.
And it is quite possible that if a renaissance in architecture were to take place, it would come from metaphysics. Maybe metaphysics will save physics, so to speak, perhaps.
Besides, perhaps the thought of Alvar Aalto would stimulate us towards a different understanding of architecture as a cultural phenomenon: 'Architecture belongs to culture, not to civilization'. Interesting distinction.
Thank you!

SUMMARY OF THE MAGAZINE ARHITECTURA, NR.5-6/ 2019
COMPETITION