Competitionparadox
For more than two centuries, the architectural competition has been regarded as the key to enhancing building culture.
Ambitious architects shoulder user specifications, space programs, standards and costs with the prospect of a new project in a mutual trial of strength. Developments over the past 20 years, however, also reveal the dark side of contemporary competition:
- Young and supposedly inexperienced architects are denied access to many competition to many competition procedures due to a lack of references.
- The submission rates of many procedures exceed the capacities of many architects in terms of of many architects in terms of time and costs.
- It is complained that contemporary competition procedures due to overregulation architectural mediocrity due to over-regulation, or that award-winning designs are not are not realized at all.
This semester will focus on field research on competition in architecture using the city of Aachen as an example since the end of World War 2.
Further information will follow.