Berlin’s 20th Century Art Museum Competition: Ten Designs Advanceby Stanley Collyer 
©FAZ Aerial view of site Adding on to Mies van der Rohe’s famous Museum of the 20th Century is no small challenge for any architect participating in this competition. If symbolism wasn’t enough, the site is surrounded by distinctive structures, including Hans Sharoun’s Philharmonic Hall and National Library, the latter located just across the street, and the Matthias Church. Although the selected site next to the current museum was a controversial call, the sponsors of this international competition decided against moving it to another location. One of the unintended consequences of that decision would have to be the size and appearance of the addition. To what extent would it be competing with the existing Mies museum, not only in its siting, but also its architectural expression? This recently concluded ideas competition attracted 460 entries from around the world. Of those, ten submissions were awarded €26,000 to proceed to the next competition round, where a number of firms will be added to the mix—40-60 is the most recent estimate by the client—for the €200M commission. Why add an ideas competition to this process when the normal procedure has been to shortlist high profile firms for EU competitions? One may only speculate that the uproar caused by a lawsuit coming from a substantial segment of the architecture profession in Germany, complaining about the exclusion of smaller firms from the process, had its effect on the sponsor’s decision to pursue this two-tier process. Although probably well intentioned, this process could have some interesting, unintended consequences. One could only imagine what might occur if a young employee of a large firm, which subsequently was selected to participate in the second-stage competition for the commission, had already entered the invited competition and been selected as one of the ten finalists in the ideas competition to participate in the next stage. Would that firm be represented twice in the second stage? Thomas Hoffmann-Kuhnt, long-time editor of the German architectural publication, Wettbewerbe Aktuell, said, “in my 50 years as an observer in this business I have never seen a competition organized in this fashion.” One may assume that the Association of German Architects (BdA) didn’t have a guiding hand in this. The ideas competition did turn out to be international in scope, as half of the ten finalists were non-German. As the anonymity will be adhered to throughout the second stage, those first-stage entries—identified here by number only—may still have an outside chance for the commission. In the meantime, there will be a lot of debate about the several strategies pursued by those teams who advanced to the second stage. Entry # 1361: Entry # 1358: Entry # 1300: Entry # 1281: Entry # 1155: Entry # 1151: Entry # 1144: Entry # 1115: Entry # 1031: Entry # 1006: |
SWA/Balsley Wins Paveletskaya Plaza Landscape Competition
Aerial view at night – courtesy SWA/Balsley 5+ Design
Of the nine railway stations in Moscow, Paveletskaya is the largest and one of the last of those that opened around the turn of the century. Compared to other Moscow stations, Paveletskaya, designed by Alexander Krasovsky and opened in 1900, represented a lower-key presence in its sprawling configuration, similar to palaces such as a Sans Souci without the ornamentation. The original site for the recent competition included a small park facing the station, bordered on one side by the Ring Road. Post WWII, the site was bifurcated by a road, thus separating the front entrance of the station from the grassy area facing it. Read more… Young Architects in Competitions When Competitions and a New Generation of Ideas Elevate Architectural Quality
by Jean-Pierre Chupin and G. Stanley Collyer
published by Potential Architecture Books, Montreal, Canada 2020
271 illustrations in color and black & white
Available in PDF and eBook formats
ISBN 9781988962047
What do the Vietnam Memorial, the St. Louis Arch, and the Sydney Opera House have in common? These world renowned landmarks were all designed by architects under the age of 40, and in each case they were selected through open competitions. At their best, design competitions can provide a singular opportunity for young and unknown architects to make their mark on the built environment and launch productive, fruitful careers. But what happens when design competitions are engineered to favor the established and experienced practitioners from the very outset? This comprehensive new book written by Jean-Pierre Chupin (Canadian Competitions Catalogue) and Stanley Collyer (COMPETITIONS) highlights for the crucial role competitions have played in fostering the careers of young architects, and makes an argument against the trend of invited competitions and RFQs. The authors take an in-depth look at past competitions won by young architects and planners, and survey the state of competitions through the world on a region by region basis. The end result is a compelling argument for an inclusive approach to conducting international design competitions. Download Young Architects in Competitions for free at the following link: https://crc.umontreal.ca/en/publications-libre-acces/
Image Courtesy Network Rail
From Grand Central Station to King’s Cross in London, railway stations have often represented some of the major architectural accomplishments of our times. But those edifices have been primarily located in great cities. In the U.K. there are over 2,000 stations located in medium-sized, small, and rural communities. Most of those are ‘quick stop’ locations, and not the destination terminals where space requirements often result in state of the art design. In July of last year, U.K.’s Network Rail, in collaboration with the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) launched a competition to identify a concept for a design that would be suitable for the medium to small-sized rail stations, at the same time updating the program to fit the modern needs of such a facility. The competition was open internationally and received 213 entries from 34 countries last September. Read more… The Urban Confluence Silicon Valley Competition
Urban Confluence Silicon Valley winner: ©SMAR Architecture Studio
After several stops and starts over an extended period of time, the winner of the Urban Confluence Design Competition was named in early March, 2021. SMAR Architecture Studio’s The Breeze of Innovation, which prevailed over two other shortlisted finalists from the original 963 entries, won with a novel tower-like structure consisting primarily of hundreds of rods, generating energy while swaying in the wind. Read More…
Pedestrian perspective
The result of an effort from a professor at the TUM (Technische Universität München) to restore the Budludzha Monument in Bulgaria, located in a remote location on a mountain top in that country, we discovered that it originally was the result of a 1959 design competition won by the young Bulgarian architect, Georgi Stoilov. Read more… A Flawed Plan Leads to Budget Issues
Competition rendering of project looking south to Mies museum ©Herzog de Meuron
Once considered on the forefront of modern architecture in post-WWII Europe, Berlin has had its share of questionable decisions concerning important urban projects in recent history. Beginning with the rebirth of the Berlin Palace (Humboldt Forum) on the Spree by Italian architect, Franco Stella, and now followed by Herzog de Meuron’s controversial addition to Mies’s 20th Century Art Museum, the times when one could look to Berlin as a signpost of architectural innovation can only be viewed in the rear view mirror.
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