Architecture competition

FAILED COMPETITION - DRAWER PROJECT

text: Crișan ATANASIU

ARCHITECTURAL COMPETITION

I take this opportunity to open the discussion about the awarding of the design of a public interest objective. You will say that you are not interested, that it is not in the public interest how projects are awarded. Wrong! It's your money. You are the customers! This means - as some people have already understood - that architecture does not belong to the architects, but that they are at the service of the city and the citizens for whom the buildings are intended. And it's not just about architecture, it's also about town planning. This is more serious: a house can last 100 years, a street can last 500 years, a city - 1,000 years.
We should not be indifferent to the quality of the buildings we spend our money on. The age of quantity has passed, the age of caves has been followed by the age of construction, and since then there has been a continuous evolution - requirements, possibilities, technology are constantly changing. Look at the example of our country: the house boom immediately after 1990 (urban or rural) was characterized by quantity: big houses, lots of rooms, Lindab, central heating, polystyrene, thermopan - a simplistic approach to comfortable shelter. After a while, the clients' expectations grew and they started to take quality into account: appearance, finishing materials, personal taste, originality.
Selecting designers on a competitive basis drives quality: may the best design win. But how do you decide who is the best? With referees, a jury of experts, professionals, like figure skating (if you like) or the George Enescu Festival competitions. We should not expect bankers, doctors, industrialists or sportsmen, nor writers, actors, politicians, and least of all priests, to choose the best project.
The architectural competition has a long tradition. More than 600 years ago, in Florence in 1401, a competition (perhaps the first?) was launched by the 'Arte di Calimala' Fund - a flourishing guild of textile merchants - to choose from among several Renaissance architects-sculptors-painters to design the gates (north and then west) of the Baptistery. The doors designed and realized by Lorenzo Ghiberti can still be admired today.
Another example from our own country: 1926, a year distinguished by an avalanche of public (architectural) competitions: Bucharest City Hall, the Palace of the Ministry of Lands, Craiova City Hall, the Craiova City Hall, the Association of Mining Engineers, the Madona Dudu Church, the Romanian Academy, etc. We read in the magazine "Arhitectura", year V, 1926: "...with this competition (Bucharest City Hall) it was proved that there is another solution, perhaps more appropriate. Here then is the advantage of a public competition and the disadvantage of having only one opinion, as in the case of direct commissions".
The bad habit of awarding the design directly, without competition, generates corruption and often hides the 'para-abandonment' method - part of the design fee goes back to the decision-maker who pulled the strings - which abolishes the primacy of quality and professionalism. More recently, however, we are learning that corruption can occur even when a competition is won "in good faith". We know the case of some brave architects who denounced a request for bribes in Râmnicu Vâlcea, going so far as to organize a flagrant raid with the prosecutors. But how many are like them.
That is why I say that legislating that architectural design for investments using public money should be awarded by competition would only bring fairness, order and quality. There are civilized countries (France, for example) where the law makes it obligatory to award the architectural design of investment projects above a certain threshold (in terms of value or importance).
Moreover, the European Union has long been considering regulating public procurement. Directives 2004/17 EC and 2004718 EC as well as the Green Paper on the 2020 strategy for the modernization of EU policy in this area (issued in 2011 and widely debated in 2013) are full of provisions in favor of the idea of competitive tendering. But even there the directives have been under debate for 10 years.
Law 184/2001 has missed the opportunity to regulate the awarding of contracts for the design of large-scale buildings: it is only in Article 48 that it mentions "tenders and design contests", tangentially referring to the composition of juries. All attempts to introduce an article on the need for a competition have come up against a wall of ignorance or ill will. Moreover, the presence in Law 184 of the notion of 'tender' in design matters is at the very least counterproductive, if not harmful: we all know what lies beneath the tendering process - the subordination of architectural creation to the commands of execution; moreover, tenders, by definition, give the winner to the highest bidder.

FAILED COMPETITION - DRAWER PROJECT

The project was presented at the OAR Bucharest 2011 Annual in the section Unrealized Projects.
Personally, I took seriously the theme launched by the Patriarchate, except the location, which I reject with arguments. I have taken the liberty to enrich and interpret the theme in the direction and sense of creating a "RELIGIOUS MOL" with respect for the canons. I introduced and utilized some personal innovations and ideas in terms of functions, zoning, shapes and sizes that I hoped would convince that we need a 21st century building and not a vintage pastiche.

The best projects are the ones that don't get executed.
You take the money and you're spared the hullaballoo and site liability.
Practice will not contradict theory and thwart the dream.
On paper anything is possible.

This is what we used to say, among ourselves, some 25 years ago, when we thought that the future had what it took to ensure beautiful works that would go from virtual to real and make us famous. Today, when I see how many works have remained in drawers or on sticks, at the draft or idea stage, I remember with nostalgia the cold and the draughts on the building sites, the smell of raw concrete, of the smoke of fir wood and hot bitumen, the guttural shouts of the workers at the crane, their laborious deciphering of the plans.
Work in architectural education is marked by the sense (in students and teachers) that the project is the end in itself (and the end) of architecture, and so there is a great emphasis on creativity and presentation. That may be all well and good, but life, the profession, contradicts us. The distance from project to building is the distance from dream to reality, and crossing that distance may cost a lifetime, but it is the greatness of our profession.

NEW PATRIARCHAL CATHEDRAL - ALTERNATIVE PROPOSAL

Just when it seemed as if there would never be a site in Bucharest suitable enough for the National Cathedral dreamed of since the 19th century, the arrow dislodged from the arch of the Patriarch landed in an unfortunate place.
Naturally, the architectural community would have launched a competition on the subject, as has happened on two previous occasions. The organizers of the competition were intimidated by the importance, the taxing and the authority of the Precious Client, who communicated his impatience and displeasure through his spokesman. Perhaps they feared the anathema that might be cast upon the Guild, although there were voices saying "fear not, for the Patriarch is not God!". On the other hand, the client (the Patriarchate) feared further procrastination and decided to take "autocephalous" decisions. This did not prevent some enthusiasts from following their calls and ideas and even "pro bono" to draft them. It is worth mentioning the architects Cristina Gociman and Andrei Pandele. I count myself among these enthusiasts and a new "drawer project" was born.

1. WHY?
Out of envy for modernist creations in terms of churches (Catholic, Protestant) culminating with "Nossa Senhora Apreciada" - Oscar Niemeyer, Brasilia.
Because of the provocative appeal of the program. The traditional elements of Orthodox worship incite original and unconventional architectural interpretations and stylizations, especially as it is little explored terrain.
Because of my personal background: in 1990 I was attracted by the competition launched for the Church of the Heroes in the newly-created cemetery near Bellu, and in 1999 I participated in the competition for the Cathedral on the site of Unirii Square.

2. WHAT WE DID.
I glossed on the theme launched by the Patriarchate and interpreted as follows:

• I disregarded the location, which I find unacceptable;
• I gave up two of the three basements;
• I have proposed a water mirror around the platform to bypass the church;
  we have introduced adjacent functions to furnish the huge volume resulting from the desired dimensions imposed by the client through the theme: Museum of Romanian Orthodoxy, Auditorium, Library, Archives, Theological Studies, Exotic Plants Greenhouse. As a consequence, I proposed the zoning of the volume into "public zone" and "initiates zone". The resulting concept (without having been programmatic) can invent the category - from the lay register - of Religious MALL!

I took as premises:

• MOTTO: Math tends toward God;
• The mystical nature of numbers (whole numbers, numbers with meaning, used in the main quotations - 3, 4, 7, 12, 33, 40, 50, as well as submultiples, in this way we get a kind of modulation);
• The ratio of mean and extreme ratio (golden ratio) between the sizes of some compositional elements;
• Regular geometric trajectories (circle, square, established triangles) applied in plans, sections and facades;
• Architectural elements taken from the Romanian church-building tradition (cylindrical vault in full arch, window with successive recessed anchoring, exterior fresco).
• Innovations:
• Pantocrator fresco exposed vertically and vaulted with graded visibility right from the pronaos: the fresco is perceived immediately after the entrance and, as the viewer advances towards the altar, the angle of view progressively reveals it until the full image of Jesus seated on the throne is revealed - an image that impresses by its scale and by its subordination/dominance of space. The study of natural light: the Pantocrator's fresco, facing west, will receive full light at vespers and possibly the sun's rays at sunset. Light courtyards and zenithal skylights will bring natural light inside the massive built volume. A "celestial skylight" above the catapetesis can create a special atmosphere and can be scenographically speculated even with artificial light;
• The church as a ship of faith, symbolically surrounded by water;
• The 7 waterfalls on the sides of the main access ramp.

3. THE DEMAND
I aimed to convey the idea that in the 21st century it is possible to conceive a House of God without violating the rules of worship, or even respecting and enriching them, bringing them closer to the perception of the contemporary man, the conscious and Gnostic believer.

4. OPINIONS
Progress must coexist with faith in God.
Even the Pope believes that Big-Bang and evolutionary theories are compatible with the Creator.
Even cosmonauts have mysterious perceptions or carry icons with them.
Orthodoxy = the right faith is not about form, but about content, as proof that there are orthodox in other cults too, those who, with acridity, cannot and will not leave dogma in its details.
There is a dichotomy between content and form, between the essence of the faith and its material, logistical shell. The essence is not to be found in the scriptures, but in souls. The liturgy and the precepts of the cult can and must be respected, but the priest speaks into a microphone, his words are broadcast over loudspeakers on Trinitas radio and TV, priests come to Mass in cars, lists of parishioners and subscription lists are archived in computers, holy water is brought in by tankers, the cross is thrown in waves from a barge, pilgrims are guarded by bodyguards, Churches are equipped with central heating, air conditioning, double-glazed windows, chandeliers with electric light bulbs, state-of-the-art materials and equipment, sophisticated calculations of structural strength and heat transfer, and, last but not least, electricity, mechanical and nuclear energy are used in the construction of any new church.
Why should architecture - the Queen and Corollary of all activities - be left behind?

SUMMARY OF ARHITECTURA MAGAZINE, ISSUE 5-6/ 2019
COMPETITION