Archives: Billets

ARCHITECTURAL COMPETITIONS, PROMOTION OF EXCELLENCE AND CRITICISM OF OUR INSTITUTIONS: THE ROLE OF THE RAIC THROUGHOUT HISTORY

 

How can we simultaneously promote quality in architecture, represent the interests of Canadian architects, and criticize our democratic institutions, especially when a federal government chooses to overturn a competition jury’s decision in favor of a public vote? This research essay examines the historical role of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) in addressing political interference in the procurement of public contracts for architectural services. More broadly, the essay explores architects’ ability to critique governments and other national democratic institutions representing them.

The controversy surrounding the outcome of the National Monument to Canada’s Mission in Afghanistan architectural competition has been previously analyzed in a position paper by Jean-Pierre Chupin and Jacques White. (1) Launched in August 2019, this competition has since sparked widespread outcry across the country, with criticism from architects, journalists and parliamentarians. In June 2023, Amy Meunier, Assistant Deputy Minister at Veterans Affairs Canada, sent a terse email to the legitimate winners of the competition, stating: “Despite the fact that the jury selected your concept as the winning design, after careful consideration, the Government of Canada has decided to select the concept developed by [another team] and, consequently, to award the contract to that team.” (2) By overturning the decision of the jury, composed of representatives from all relevant stakeholder groups, the federal government not only violated the competition’s regulations but also undermined the integrity of long-established processes for awarding contracts via design competitions. Although regrettable, this situation is not without precedent in Canada.

Unlike previous cases of political interference, the competition for the National Monument to Canada’s Mission in Afghanistan did not receive the same level of support from the RAIC. The organization notably remained silent for several months after the controversy first emerged. Historically, however, the RAIC has demonstrated its ability to promptly defend the integrity of architectural processes when political meddling compromised decisions intended to be made by juries or peer committees, and even in cases involving public tenders without a design competition. This raises an important question: In principle, does the RAIC’s mission to promote architecture nationally prevent the organization from criticizing—or even commenting on—political and governmental decisions?

The RAIC Addressing Political Interference in Architecture Throughout History

To find an architectural competition that stirred controversy comparable to the National Monument to Canada’s Mission in Afghanistan, we must look back to the late 1990s. During that period, the federal government overturned the jury’s decision for the design of the Canadian Embassy in Berlin, Germany. This action was unprecedented in Canadian history and, as such, prompted a strong public response from the RAIC. Its president at the time, Eva Matsuzaki (1998-1999), sharply criticized the Chrétien government, stating: “Architecture services must be procured through a fair and transparent evaluation process, one that respects the unique contribution of the architectural profession as well as the business and financial risks taken by firms who participate. The competition for the design of the Berlin Chancery began as an open selection process. However, the outcome demonstrated a lack of understanding of the architectural process, and created the unwelcome appearance of a closed, if not overtly political, process.” (3)

In the following years, the RAIC worked closely with Ottawa to restore the integrity of public contract awarding processes, thus contributing to rebuilding trust within the architectural community. Yet, it was not the RAIC’s first public intervention in response to controversial governmental decisions. As noted by architectural critic Marco Polo in 1999: “The selection process for the Berlin Embassy has sparked the RAIC to once again [italics added] approach the Government regarding the award of commissions for public projects.” (4)

In other instances, the RAIC found the appropriate tone to oppose federal government actions that undermine the rules governing public contracts for architectural services. For example, in 1982, sixteen years before the controversy of the Canadian Embassy in Berlin, former RAIC President G. Macy DuBois (1982-1983) publicly criticized then Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau for selecting acquaintances to design major federal projects. Among these was Canada’s Embassy to the United States in Washington, conceived by Canadian architect Arthur Erickson, who was a known friend of the Trudeau family. In response to this blatant favoritism, DuBois defended the profession by declaring: “We have a responsibility to combat this tendency towards secrecy and to help develop a selection system that is public, informed, objective, and free from extraneous influence. We are working to that end… Only an open and public selection process can remove the taint of political patronage and its unsavoury overtones.” (5)

These two precedents illustrate that the RAIC’s commitment to upholding quality in architectural processes can coexist with its role as “the only national voice for excellence in the built environment in Canada,” (6) which implies not only the promotion of high standards but also the need to oppose political decisions that compromise the integrity of the profession, particularly during the crucial process of awarding contracts.

The Saga of the National Monument to Canada’s Mission in Afghanistan

For over a year, hundreds of architects and design professionals across Canada— together with major political and media figures (7)—have voiced their opposition to the injustice faced by the team selected by the jury for the National Monument to Canada’s Mission in Afghanistan competition. The collective power of these voices is significant. Additionally, many have signed an online petition condemning the competition’s undemocratic selection and urging the federal government to reverse its decision. Despite a near-universal consensus within the architectural community, the RAIC’s hesitation and unwillingness to unequivocally denounce the irregularities in the judging process of this architectural competition of national importance remains perplexing.

It wasn’t until several months after the controversy erupted that the RAIC finally spoke out, publishing an open letter in a design magazine whose publisher is registered with the Canadian Lobbyists Registry. (8) Signed by Jason Robbins, the RAIC’s outgoing president (2023-2024), the letter, addressed to architects rather than the federal government, nonetheless sidesteps the controversy’s fundamental issue. Robbins characterizes the National Monument to Canada’s Mission in Afghanistan architectural competition as “a good example of good intentions and bad execution.” (9) This statement, which seems to justify rather than criticize the Trudeau government’s actions, contrasts greatly with the positions taken by former RAIC Presidents in similar cases of political interference. Robbins concludes his letter by minimizing the importance of long-established rules and processes governing architectural competitions: “Ultimately, it’s not about design competitions. While a well-executed competition can provide an invaluable opportunity to connect architectural design to a broader civic discourse, engaging the public is a more fundamental problem. What we really need is opportunities for architects to be creative and innovative. We need them to be able to push the boundaries of our current process [italics added] — much like they would within a competition — alongside the client and user groups to collaboratively create buildings and places that aren’t just ‘something only an architect could love,’ but something that clearly reflects Canadian culture both as it is, and as we want it to be.” (10)

What does “to push the boundaries of our current process” actually mean in the context of architectural competitions? Does this position signal a fundamental shift in the RAIC’s historical stance, especially considering that the organization pledges to be “committed to showcasing how design enhances quality of life, while advocating for important issues of society through responsible architecture?” (11) These questions are particularly pertinent given that the RAIC also claims that architectural competitions should be based on “fair and equitable guidelines for roles, responsibilities, processes, and procedures.” (12)

Promoting Architectural Excellence or Representing Architects’ Interests?

Since its founding in 1907, the RAIC has played a crucial role in defining architectural excellence in Canada, notably via professional training offered by external experts and thanks to its prestigious awards and honors program. (13) Nevertheless, the failed outcome of the National Monument to Canada’s Mission in Afghanistan architectural competition underscores that advancing architectural excellence sometimes necessitates political advocacy—not just on behalf of architects, but for the common good.

Elsewhere in the world, many architectural organizations overtly seek to influence governmental policies related to the built environment. For example, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) advocates at the local, state and federal levels to influence legislation to ensure funding for buildings and architecture. (15) In the United Kingdom, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) engages openly and purposefully in lobbying efforts to promote architectural interests within the British Parliament. (16) Similarly, the International Union of Architects (UIA), a federation of national professional organizations, claims to be “working to unify architects, influence public policies [italics added] and advance architecture in service to the needs of society.” (17) Even the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH), the largest scholarly organization dedicated to the historical study of the built environment, recently opposed Florida’s “Resiliency and Safe Structures Act,” a law enacted by the state legislature last April. (18) Given the overt and active political engagement of various architectural associations around the world, it seems pertinent to look at the Canadian context in this regard.

The RAIC was first registered with the Canadian Registry of Lobbyists in 1997, a year before Eva Matsuzaki’s remarks concerning the saga of the Canadian Embassy in Berlin. However, at the time of this essay’s publication, the RAIC’s registration status was listed as inactive. (18) This fact reaffirms the importance of the questions posed in this essay: Can the RAIC continue to promote architectural excellence while retaining the capacity to criticize governments that knowingly violate the rules of architectural competitions? Does its advocacy role still permit the RAIC to challenge and oppose the federal government when faced with undue political interference? If criticism is indeed essential to advocating architectural excellence, RAIC representatives bear the responsibility of addressing the questions and issues uncovered in this historical analysis.

Like several other organizations representing specific interests in architecture and heritage, the Regulatory Organizations of Architecture in Canada (ROAC) recently published an extensive report—officially endorsed by the RAIC—advocating for the adoption of a national architecture policy for Canada. In this report, the ROAC claims that establishing “accountability for politicians, professionals, and the public” is a critical element to ensure the policy’s success. (19) On the matter of accountability and influence, another former RAIC President, Ewa Bieniecka (2017), maintains that “if architects want to make a change and have influence, we have to speak as with one voice. Architects have to lobby for change in design procurement and make the business case for the social and cultural value of excellent design.” (20)

Beyond politics, Canada’s relatively recent architectural history demonstrates that Canadian architects have consistently played a vital role in advancing the well-being of civil society, offering fair and innovative solutions to improve our living environments and communities. Yet, without a strong, unified national voice, their contributions to solving major societal issues risk becoming—using the words of the outgoing RAIC President—“a good example of good intentions and bad execution.”

 

Born in Thetford Mines (QC), Samuel Dubois is an architect (OAQ), academic researcher and trained geographer. In 2020, after working in architectural firms in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Canada for a few years, he began his doctorate degree in the History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Since then, Samuel has presented his research work at various scientific conferences, including at the University of Oxford, the New York Public Library and the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is also the co-editor of Thresholds 52: Disappearance, an award-winning peer-reviewed journal about art and architecture, published by MIT Press. Samuel notably served as a member of the RAIC Awards Advisory Committee from 2021 to 2023.

 

 

IN THE ARCHIVES OF JACQUES FOLCH-RIBAS, QUEBEC ARCHITECT WINNER OF NUMEROUS LITERARY PRIZES

Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ), not the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), holds the archives of Quebec architect Jacques Folch-Ribas. And with good reason: Folch-Ribas was not only a collaborator of Le Corbusier, but also a protégé of Albert Camus and a prolific writer. Born in Barcelona in 1928, he spent part of his youth in France, arriving in Quebec for love in 1956. He is the author of thirteen novels, several of which have won literary prizes: Une aurore boréale won the Prix France-Québec in 1974, Le Valet de plume won the Molson Prize of the Académie canadienne-française in 1983, and Le silence ou Le parfait bonheur won the Governor General’s Award in 1989. Finally, he received the Prix Duvernay in 1990 for his body of work. Goncourt-nominated Jacques Folch-Ribas is also the author of La chair de pierre (published in 1989), a novel tinged by his own training as an architect, and a Quebec analog to Fernand Pouillon’s classic Les pierres sauvages (1964).

What can we learn about the architect’s relationship with literature from his archives? This scientific paper proposes a reflection on Folch-Ribas’ status as a writer and his recognition by various players in the publishing and literary worlds, inspired by the documents left by the architect in Quebec. It questions the criteria by which an author from the world of construction is transformed from a writer to a writer. The Jacques Folch-Ribas fonds, on view at BAnQ Vieux-Montréal, consists mainly of texts and radio recordings produced between 1963 and 2014 (1). Detailed plans and successive sketches for published and unpublished works, research and working notes, press clippings, extensive correspondence with leading figures from the literary world of Quebec and France (Hervé Bazin, Robert Laffont, Marguerite Yourcenar, Michèle Lalonde, Victor-Lévy Beaulieu, to name but a few): these are all handwritten traces left by the architect that can indicate the extent to which his writing is colored (or not) by his training as a designer.

In his Essais critiques, Roland Barthes draws a fundamental distinction between the figure of the “écrivain” and that of the “écrivant”. What first and foremost separates these two individuals is the place writing occupies in their lives. Where the “écrivain” performs a function, the “écrivant” performs an activity: “this is what grammar already teaches us, contrasting the noun of the one with the (transitive) verb of the other” (2). Where the écrivain’s word is neither an instrument nor a vehicle, for literature is its own end, the écrivant’s word is rather the support of a doing, an instrument for communicating thought. Where the écrivain’s written word involves both technical norms (of composition, genre, writing) and artisanal norms (of toil, patience, correction, perfection), the care the écrivant takes with his writing, and even his style, is secondary. Finally, where the écrivain’s word is the sole object of an institution made for it alone (literature), a commodity delivered according to circuits established centuries ago, the écrivant’s word can only be produced and consumed on the margins of institutions whose primary aim is not to enhance the value of language.

While most architects are “écrivants”, the documents in the Jacques Folch-Ribas archive confirm that he is a special case of a seasoned “écrivain”. A perusal of Folch-Ribas’ correspondence and press articles clearly shows that the architect’s written work is supported by a series of mediations. His novels are surrounded by “circles of recognition”, in the words of sociologist Nathalie Heinich, each of these circles being “more and more populated at the same time as becoming later and less competent” (3). The written work of Jacques Folch-Ribas is recognized by publishing professionals (well-established houses and organizers of prestigious literary prizes), by his peers (some of the most renowned writers of the twentieth century), by critics (authors of specialized literary columns and journalists writing articles for a wide audience), but also by politicians, academics and even some architects.

Although Folch-Ribas uses a letterhead in his correspondence that announces him as an “architect” and “urban planner”, the letters he exchanges with his Paris publishing house leave no room for doubt: he belongs to the literary world. His first circle of recognition was that of publishing professionals. On September 10, 1985, translator Hortense Chabrier wrote to him: “You belong to the small number of those who have a real writer’s fiber” (4). A few months later, Robert Laffont himself confirms, with the mischievous phrase “Dear Mr. Writer” (5), and in the rest of his letter: “I knew all your literary qualities, but I didn’t know that you also had the stature of a great adventure novelist à la Ludlum or Martin Cruz Smith” (5). He insists: “It’s a beautiful, strong and original story, and written and composed by the writer that you are”, “A real writer’s text!” (5). The same was true when he commented on the manuscript of La chair de pierre in 1989: “It’s a book as solid as its builder, dense and uncompromising. A very good book for you! The style is highly constructed, even elliptical at times” (6).

The second circle of recognition for Jacques Folch-Ribas’ written work is that of other writers. While Marguerite Yourcenar described the architect as a “novelist” (7), Jean Cayrol saw him as a writer in his own right: “You speak as you are, happy writer!” (8). As early as 1975, when he was President of the Académie Goncourt, Hervé Bazin held Folch-Ribas, nominee for one of France’s most prestigious literary prizes, in the highest esteem: “Friend, (…) You came very close [underlined in the letter] to winning the Prix Goncourt” (9). La chair de pierre, which romanticizes the story of Claude Baillif, the first architect of New France, born around 1635, is undoubtedly the most popular book among Folch-Ribas’ peers. A letter from poet and playwright Michèle Lalonde testifies to this: “You have written a beautiful book (…). It is, in itself, an architect’s work: the restructuring and restoration of a myth” (10). Gilles Toupin adds: “Of course, there’s the impeccable language, which captures and captivates me; there’s the figure of Claude, a little of us, a lot of you, and these chiseled sentences on architecture (…) by the great wordsmith you’ve become” (11).

Literary critics constitute the third circle of recognition for Jacques Folch-Ribas’ written work. A press clipping from the 1970s confirms his status: “By the third novel, you’re no longer a writer by chance: you’re a confirmed writer. It’s a difficult step to take. Folch not only passes that hurdle; he triumphs over it. (12). Journalists were full of praise: Gilles Marcotte said of Dehors les chiens that “This book has everything it takes to become a bestseller” (13), Guy Champagne asserted that “All the work of Jacques Folch-Ribas is part of the current of what is called ‘great literature'” (14), while François Nourissier described La chair de pierre as “a masterpiece of craftsmanship” and a “beautiful and serious novel” (15). Finally, Louis Caron praised Folch-Ribas when he announced in Le Devoir that the architect had won the Governor General’s Award for Literature for Le Silence ou le Parfait Bonheur: “This novel by Jacques Folch-Ribas bears witness to an exceptional mastery of writing (…). The jury was particularly struck by it (…), recognizing in it the mark of great authors” (16).

Finally, Jacques Folch-Ribas’ novels are recognized in other, later, less literary circles, including politics, university, and architecture. When Folch-Ribas was awarded the Prix Duvernay in 1990 for his body of work, member of the Quebec National Assembly Pauline Marois sent him a letter in which she acknowledged his contribution: “This honor clearly demonstrates your contribution to the field of literature in Quebec” (17). In 1998, Folch-Ribas presented an autobiographical text entitled “Lecture et littérature” (18) at a symposium. In it, he reflects on the role of the writer, but makes no mention of his profession as an architect. And yet, Folch-Ribas is also recognized by colleagues in his “first profession”. André Blouin, on the letterhead of Blouin & associés Architectes, expresses his enthusiasm following the publication of La chair de pierre and its television appearance: “Bravo!… a little belatedly, but sincerely for your book first of all, but also for your appearance on the Pivot show (…) I’m very proud to have a ‘goncourable’ as a friend” (19). He continues: “I would like to renew my admiration for the communicator and the writer” (19).

Although Jacques Folch-Ribas is a well-known writer (écrivain), does his training as an architect have any impact on his writing? In an interview with Éric Etter published in 1993 in Continuité magazine, the author clarifies his position. Folch-Ribas first published at the age of 43. Yet he would have liked literature to be his main occupation: “It’s very simple: I’ve always wanted to be a writer, but I always knew, even when I was very young, that you couldn’t make a living as a writer, except in very rare cases” (20). So it was out of resignation, if you will, and a love of drawing that Folch-Ribas became an architect: “So I looked for a second profession and, of course, like all second professions, it quickly became the first” (20). He points out that there is little connection between his experience in architecture (which is a service to a client) and his experience in literature (a much freer activity): “In literature, there is no commission from the client, only ours, and that’s what’s so wonderful and makes all the difference” (20). While words may seem more ephemeral than stones, for Folch-Ribas, building architecture that lasts over time is as much a challenge as writing a novel that will endure for centuries, “especially in America, where buildings have an average life expectancy of twenty years” (20).

Like Fernand Pouillon, Pierre Riboulet or Michel Bataille, Jacques-Folch Ribas is one of those rare architects who asserts himself as a true writer with freedom of action, rather than a writer at the service of the architectural project. In 2021, we asked the late Jean-Louis Cohen, an eminent researcher and architectural historian, about the criteria that make an architect’s personality switch from the figure of an “écrivant” to that of an “écrivain”. He replied: “A certain talent, a certain ambition, a position in the social field in contact with publishers or intellectuals who stimulate them” (21). Cohen then thought of Frantz Jourdain, about whom he wrote a chapter in 2019 in Emmanuel Rubio and Yannis Tsiomis’s book, L’architecte à la plume: “He was close to Zola and the Goncourts. Clearly, he had a knock-on effect” (21). The same undoubtedly applied to Jacques Folch-Ribas, who came into contact with Albert Camus, then Jean Cayrol, Robert Laffont and Hervé Bazin, even on the other side of the Atlantic. In addition to pre-existing literary qualities, the influence of an intellectual circle would therefore be fundamental in the switch to writer’s status: “What often leads architects to write is the association with writers (…) In this respect, we should take an interest in the modes of sociability of architecture” (21).

(1) The composition of the Fonds Jacques Folch-Ribas can be consulted on the Advitam platform, BAnQ’s online catalog: www.advitam.banq.qc.ca (call number MSS478)

(2) Our translation. Barthes, Roland. Essais critiques, Paris: Seuil, 1981 (first edition 1964) p.148

(3) Our translation. Heinich, Nathalie. Faire voir. L’art à l’épreuve de ses médiations, Bruxelles: Les Impressions Nouvelles, 2001, p.13

(4) Our translation. Letter from Hortense Chabrier to Jacques Folch-Ribas, September 10, 1985, held at BAnQ Vieux-Montréal (portfolio 478/004/012).

(5) Our translation. Letter from Robert Laffont to Jacques Folch-Ribas, April 25, 1986, held at BAnQ Vieux-Montréal (portfolio 478/004/012).

(6) Our translation. Letter from Robert Laffont to Jacques Folch-Ribas, January 31, 1989, held by BAnQ Vieux-Montréal (portfolio 478/001/011).

(7) Our translation. Letter from Marguerite Yourcenar to Jacques Folch-Ribas, July 1971, held at BAnQ Vieux-Montréal (portfolio 478/001/011).

(8) Our translation. Letter from Jean Cayrol to Jacques Folch-Ribas, July 1977, held at BAnQ Vieux-Montréal (portfolio 478/005/002).

(9) Our translation. Letter from Hervé Bazin to Jacques Folch-Ribas, March 17, 1975, held by BAnQ Vieux-Montréal (portfolio 478/009/008).

(10) Our translation. Letter from Michèle Lalonde to Jacques Folch-Ribas, November 10, 1989, held by BAnQ Vieux-Montréal (portfolio 478/001/011).

(11) Our translation. Letter from Gilles Toupin to Jacques Folch-Ribas, November 27, 1989, held by BAnQ Vieux-Montréal (portfolio 478/001/011).

(12) Our translation. Unreferenced press clipping entitled “Une aurore boréale par Jacques Folch-Ribas”, held at BAnQ Vieux-Montréal (document holder 8 – Critiques, promotions (Romans) de la boîte 2014-07-005/01).

(13) Our translation. Press clipping signed by Gilles Marcotte in the July 1986 issue of L’actualité magazine, held at BAnQ Vieux-Montréal (document holder 8 – Critiques, promotions (Romans) from box 2014-07-005/01).

(14) Our translation. Press clipping signed by Guy Champagne, entitled “Entre l’histoire et la fiction”, held at BAnQ Vieux-Montréal (document holder 8 – Critiques, promotions (Romans) from box 2014-07-005/01).

(15) Our translation. Press clipping signed by François Nourissier in Le Figaro Magazine, November 10, 1989, held at BAnQ Vieux-Montréal (document holder 8 – Critiques, promotions (Romans) in box 2014-07-005/01).

(16) Our translation. Press clipping signed by Louis Caron in Le Devoir, March 4, 1989, held by BAnQ Vieux-Montréal (document holder 8 – Critiques, promotions (Romans) in box 2014-07-005/01).

(17) Our translation. Letter from Pauline Marois to Jacques Folch-Ribas, 1990, held by BAnQ Vieux-Montréal (portfolio 478/008/010).

(18) The full text can be consulted at BAnQ Vieux-Montréal (portfolio 478/008/009).

(19) Our translation. Letter from André Blouin to Jacques Folch-Ribas, October 27, 1989, held at BAnQ Vieux-Montréal (portfolio 478/001/011).

(20) Our translation. Interview by Éric Etter with Jacques Folch-Ribas, in the December, January and February 1993 issue of Continuité magazine, entitled “Jacques Folch-Ribas: La pierre incarnée”, held at BAnQ Vieux-Montréal (document holder 8 – Critiques, promotions (Romans) in box 2014-07-005/01).

(21) Our translation. Jean-Louis Cohen, quote from an interview conducted by Zoom between Paris and Montreal on August 26, 2021. The full transcript of this exchange is available as an appendix to my doctoral thesis, entitled “De la textualité du projet professionnel en situation de concours en architecture. Hermeneutics and comparison of texts related to winning architectural competition projects in Quebec between 2010 and 2020”.

ABOLISHING AWARD CATEGORIES GUARANTES NEITHER FAIRNESS NOR OPENNESS

 

In this post we share some thoughts on updating the architectural excellence awards evaluation framework in light of the abolition of the Ordre des Architectes du Québec (OAQ) awards categories in 2023. If definitions of exemplary architecture evolve over time, and if awards of excellence are used as indicators of exemplarity, how should evaluation frameworks evolve to limit bias, limit categorization effects and thus ensure fairness and openness? In essence, this is the question that a number of Canadian awards organizers have been asking themselves in recent years. Such is the case of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada and its Research and Innovation Award, which, in response to disciplinary changes, now recognizes not only technological innovation, but also innovation and exemplarity in research and teaching. Similarly, the Canadian Architect Award now includes a “social equity and sustainable development” component in its evaluation criteria, in addition to asking candidates to present energy performance models[1].

The Ordre des architectes du Québec is not to be outdone. A press release dated March 15, 2023 announced a major change in the evaluation framework for the Prix d’excellence en architecture: neither more nor less than the abolition of award categories. The magnitude of this change lies in the rupture it creates: the Prix d’excellence en architecture, awarded since 1978, had all included award categories since 1990[2]. This decision would have been taken “in order to encourage the nomination of projects that are more modest or more difficult to categorize, and with the aim of making a greater number of projects eligible (…) to highlight the exemplarity of achievements, regardless of location, use, scale, complexity or resources mobilized[3]“.  This approach signals a desire to update the evaluation framework in the face of new definitions of exemplarity in architecture.

While we understand the desire for openness, no specific examples of these “unconventional” projects are given. An examination of past editions reveals a notion that was entitled “out-of-category works”.  From 2017 to 2022,[4] OAQ defines these projects as any work that “does not correspond to any of the previous categories (i.e. the other established categories)”[5] . The winning projects can be classified into two types: either outdoor developments/public squares, or art installations and conceptual works. Specifically, the “out of category” winners for 2022, 2021 and 2017 are outdoor developments, the projects being, respectively, Expérience chute by Daoust Lestage, a pavilion and footbridge at Chutes-Montmorency (2022), Patinoire couverte du parc des Saphirs by ABCP architecture (2021) and Place des gens de mer et le parcours insulaire by Bourgeois Lechasseur architectes (2017). As for the 2020 and 2017 winners, the “non-category works” are art installations, the projects being Installation Le Parloir – L’empreinte by Alain Carle Architecte (2020) and Immeubles infinis by Jean-Maxime Labrecque (2017)[6].

If unconventional projects are made up of unusually award-winning typologies, such as outdoor landscaping and artistic installations, do we still find this type of project following the dissolution of the award categories? Can we already see this change as a real step in the direction of definitions concerned with both social equity and sustainable development? The list of finalists for the 2023 Prix d’excellence serves as a first, albeit insufficient, clue, as there is no outdoor development or artistic installation, and the 21 projects are divided up according to some of the categories from previous editions: administrative and commercial buildings, cultural buildings, industrial buildings, public institutional buildings, multi-family residential buildings, heritage enhancement, single-family residential buildings in urban environments and single-family residential buildings in natural environments[7]. Only one of the 21 finalists could be considered less conventional in its commission. Les Studios du PAS, by L. McComber and InForm, whose residential complex typology serves the complex social program of affordable housing “for seniors living in great precariousness or who have experienced homelessness”[8], stands out from the other projects. It seems more difficult to evaluate within its typology; if we compare it to the only other finalist residential project, Vivre 1 by ACDF Architecture, it is difficult to weigh them up because of its distinct social program.

The fact remains, however, that this project does not feature in the 2023 awards, and the finalists are perfectly classifiable in the categories of previous editions, with three of the ten projects consisting of single-family residences in the high-profile Montreal boroughs of Rosemont and Plateau, without the current definitions of exemplarity, rooted in values of social equity and sustainability, being mobilized. It is too early to draw any conclusions, but it is safe to say that repealing the award categories may not have had the expected impact.

The OAQ states in its announcement that one of the aims of abolishing the award categories is to “allow a greater number of projects to be eligible[9]“. However, despite the fact that the list of evaluation criteria seems sharper and closer to current values, the elements required in the application file, the eligibility criteria and the composition of the jury remain based on the same principles. The 2023 Prix d’excellence evaluation guide mentions that the evaluation criteria are more reflective of architects’ involvement “in inclusivity (including universal accessibility) and in the ongoing socio-ecological transition, in the wake of the OAQ’s 2022-2025 Strategic Plan and the recent Politique nationale de l’architecture et de l’aménagement du territoire (PNAAT)“[10] . New criteria such as building durability, inclusiveness and universal accessibility, and life-cycle cost[11] have been introduced. Under the guide’s evaluation criteria, it is explained that “the jury will pay particular attention to these aspects and to their transposition in the projects submitted for assessment”[12] , but it is hard to understand how criteria such as building durability and inclusiveness and universal accessibility can be measured rigorously when applications are only assessed by a text submitted by candidate architects, accompanied by drawings and photographs[13]. Eligibility criteria still require projects to be completed very recently, with any submission for the 2023 awards having to be a project “completed between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2022”[14], effectively hindering a full assessment of projects’ impact over the medium to long term. How can new criteria such as “lived experience” or “health and comfort” be assessed when the jury is made up of four architects and an expert in a complementary field[15]? The representation of users and citizens in this assessment of architectural quality is virtually non-existent.

So, despite the new criteria, the Prix d’excellence evaluation framework lacks rigor, and the abolition of award categories is not in itself a sufficient gesture to bring it up to date. Beyond the abolition of award categories, it is important to reflect on the implications of judging quality without appropriate categories. In practice, the absence of categories risks undermining the definition of exemplarity, blurring our understanding of it, for if prizes are already more ambiguous markers of exemplarity than architectural competitions (candidates in a competition being subject to a common mandate and constraints enabling deliberation by comparison)[16], our understanding of exemplarity through architectural prizes becomes even more fluid when there is no longer any framework ensuring the rigor of comparisons. How are we to understand that a concert hall wins the Prix d’excellence against a regional elementary school, a waterside green space and an urban arena? And if there aren’t enough concert halls produced in 2023, shouldn’t we wait a few years to compare not only in the logic of a typology, but also in the value of the number of years, in the test of time?

What can we say about the deliberation process, which is bound to become more arbitrary within the jury? The deliberation process, which is already not very quantitative and objective, in addition to being carried out by a small number of professionals, becomes less precise and less sharable. The jury is no longer obliged to highlight the exemplary nature of projects in less conventionally awarded categories such as industrial buildings, for example. It runs a greater risk of highlighting the same type of architectural value, in the same award categories, biased by (individual and professional) definitions of what constitutes an exemplary building. Finally, it remains to be demonstrated that juries are no longer impressed by the graphic and visual quality of the documents provided, which are often more controlled in large-scale projects, if only for budgetary reasons.

It is therefore possible that the abolition of award categories is not the most democratic solution to meet the expressed intentions of fairness and openness. Other types of change could perhaps highlight the value of a greater variety of projects. We are thinking here of the inclusion of testimonials from users’ experiences of the projects submitted, rather than online votes used only for the People’s Choice Award[17], which could help update the evaluation framework in line with current principles rooted in social value, equity and sustainability. Perhaps it is also time to move from a call for nominations to a citizen nomination process. This would necessarily produce a greater variety of candidates and therefore award-winning projects, and these projects would reflect a more diversified definition of exemplarity, since the nomination of projects by users would ensure that real-life experience is taken into account, with testimonials that are sometimes more personal and less nourished by expert jargon.

These few remarks serve no other purpose than to confirm the complexity of the issue of updating architectural award evaluation frameworks in line with changing definitions of exemplarity. Implementing effective change will undoubtedly require an openness to dialogue with users, a questioning of the evaluation tools at our disposal, and an openness to the potential of what these tools contain. The fact that over time, architectural awards have undergone an almost standardized rigidification of evaluation methods is not the main problem behind the exponential growth of architectural awards, as the studies collected in our book The Rise of Awards in Architecture (2022) have shown[18]. Rather, we need to think about ways of updating these methods of evaluation and comparison, by refining criteria that will meet the expectations not only of professionals and experts, but also of users and citizens.

[1] Elsa Lam, “Editorial: The Value of Awards,” Canadian Architect, December 1, 2022, https://www.canadianarchitect.com/editorial-the-value-of-awards/.

[2] “Les prix de l’O.A.Q. 1990,” ARQ : la revue des membres de l’Ordre des architectes du Québec, December 1990, p.11, https://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/2689699?docsearchtext=arq%20prix%20d’excellence%201990.

[3] “People’s Choice Award finalists revealed,” March 15, 2023, p.5, https://kollectif.net/app/uploads/2023/03/communiquevotepublic_pea2023_final.pdf. Our translation.

[4] “OAQ – HISTORY – AREA.” AREA. Accessed September 1, 2023. https://architecture-excellence.org/fr/oaq-historical/. Our translation.

[5] Rules of participation and operation (2021), p.3, https://www.oaq.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/PEA_2022_regle_VF.pdf. Our translation.

[6] “OAQ – HISTORY – AREA.” AREA. Accessed September 1, 2023. https://architecture-excellence.org/fr/oaq-historical/.

[7] Ibid.

[8] “Projet lauréats 2023,” Ordre des architectes du Québec, accessed August 28, 2023, https://www.oaq.com/ordre/prix/prix-dexcellence-en-architecture/prix2023/.

[9] “People’s Choice Award finalists revealed,” March 15, 2023, p.5, https://kollectif.net/app/uploads/2023/03/communiquevotepublic_pea2023_final.pdf. Our translation.

[10] Rules of participation and operation (2022), p.5, https://www.oaq.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/PEA_2023_regles-participation_VF.pdf. Our translation.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Rules of participation and operation (2022), p.7, https://www.oaq.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/PEA_2023_regles-participation_VF.pdf.

[14] Rules of participation and operation (2022), p.4, https://www.oaq.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/PEA_2023_regles-participation_VF.pdf.

[15] Rules of participation and operation (2022), p.6, https://www.oaq.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/PEA_2023_regles-participation_VF.pdf.

[16] Georges Adamczyk, Jean-Pierre Chupin, and Carmela Cucuzzella, Rise of Awards in Architecture (Vernon Art and Science Inc., 2022), p.53.

[17] Rules of participation and operation (2022), p.10, https://www.oaq.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/PEA_2023_regles-participation_VF.pdf.

[18] Jean-Pierre Chupin, Carmela Cucuzzella and Georges Adamczyk, The Rise of Awards in Architecture (Vernon Art and Science Inc., Wilmington, 2022), p.71.

SURVEY VERSUS COMPETITION: SIMULACRUM AND DEMOCRACY

 

About the cancellation of the competition for the memorial to Canada’s mission in Afghanistan

Survey versus Competition: Simulacrum and Democracy

September 11, 2023

 

Jean-Pierre Chupin, Canada Research Chair in Architecture, Competitions and Mediations of Excellence, Université de Montréal (www.crc.umontreal.ca )

Jacques White, architect, retired professor at Université Laval, trainer and professional advisor for multidisciplinary and architectural competitions

 

When it comes to judging art or architecture projects, an online survey is a “simulacrum of democracy” that cannot replace either a design competition or a real jury! Strongly condemning Russian-organized elections in the occupied territories of Ukraine, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently declared loud and clear that these procedures constituted a “simulacrum of election”. By cancelling the result of a competition for a veterans’ monument, and replacing it with an online poll, his government has dangerously lost its way in a travesty of democracy that we must now reflect on in order to better react and, above all, prevent from happening again.

Let us start by recalling that the art, architecture and design communities have been up in arms since the announcement, on June 19, of the cancellation of the competition for the commemorative monument to Canada’s mission in Afghanistan. Their frustration seems all the more legitimate given that the jury’s choice was overturned solely on the basis of an online survey that was rife with confusion. Claiming to give a voice to veterans – an honourable thing if ever there was one – the federal government has discredited the jury’s decision in a design competition, sacrificing in the process a fundamental principle of our democracy: respect for a qualitative collective judgement by a representative, impartial and informed jury.

If this case were to become a precedent for public commissions, no architect, designer or artist would agree to their proposals being fed to an online survey. To judge the complexity of projects for public spaces, buildings open to the public and, in this case, public monuments, a survey will never be as reliable, fair and transparent a procedure as a well-organized competition. As academics and architects well-versed in competition practices, it is important for us to denounce the dangerous confusion between opinion and judgment. An anonymous online survey, even if accompanied by a series of questions, is not the equivalent of the deliberations of a jury representing the interests of the public, made up of members informed of the multiple issues at stake, who debate all the proposals – themselves designed by multidisciplinary teams – for long hours, and make a well-argued consensus judgment in the name of the collective interest. We could sift through the survey questions, compare them with the competition documents and demonstrate without difficulty how those in the survey remain superficial, closed and non-operational, while those in the competition target fundamental questions, open to design and useful in leading to a solidly argued judgment.

The survey was carried out in a very short space of time, based on the distribution of project files, the complexity of which sometimes eludes the experts themselves. Even more dubious, the survey was controlled by so-called thematic questions, each formulation of which would have been an impossible design challenge for artists and designers. For example, one question asked which concept correctly expresses “the strong support offered by families, friends and communities at home during the mission.” Respondents were also asked which proposals: “acknowledge the efforts of Canadians in standing together with the Afghan people to help rebuild their country and encourage understanding of the significance and scope of Canada’s mission in Afghanistan.” Art, design and architecture cannot represent everything in a straightforward, simplistic and unequivocal way, especially when it comes to national symbolism. It would have been simpler and more honest to ask respondents to name their favourite project, but in doing so, it would have been more difficult to camouflage a purely political choice behind a cloud of opinions whose subjectivity would then have been obvious.

A poll is not a collective judgment! Only the qualitative judgment of a jury constitutes a deliberative construction – a collective intelligence – and this is what makes it one of the most important democratic devices. It is true that many competitions – but this was not one of them – include a clause allowing the client not to follow the jury’s recommendation. Its sole purpose is to counter any interference or irregularity in the competition process that might discredit the outcome. But in this case, the opposite is true: the sponsor interferes in a democratic process that it has previously approved by discrediting it, without valid justification. What would we say about a sports result or a film award that was cancelled out by an online survey after the fact? What if a democratic election were overturned by an anonymous online poll? What if a court judgement were overturned by an online survey pointing to the “real” culprit? Would not this all amount to revolting public lynching?

The honor of veterans is respected neither by the disreputable refutation of a well-established procedure, nor by a political choice with an unconvincing outcome. This is not the primary aim of our analysis, but comparing the two proposals the differences are clear, as are the tensions between abstraction and figuration they embody. It is quite clear that the choice of figurative imagery was presented as popular and “validated by veterans”, the better to place it in opposition to the choice of a jury of experts deemed abstract. The fact is that the jury included a veteran, a representative of military families and a former ambassador to Afghanistan, as well as a museum director, an architect, a historian and a landscape architect. There is even something contemptuous of the Canadian public in considering that a commemorative monument would be better served by literal images loaded with armour, helmets and shields, than by pared-down images evoking human sacrifice through timeless plays of light and shadow. With several other commemorative monument projects in the pipeline at Veterans Affairs Canada, it would be urgent to open the debate on contemporary creation in the service of heritage and citizens.

Everyone loses out in this sad affair. The veterans, first of all, because you do not express “Canada’s deep gratitude for the sacrifices made by Canadians who served in Afghanistan, including those Canadian Armed Forces members and civilians who lost their lives or were injured”* by flouting a procedure designed to protect boldness, integrity and impartiality. Then there is the government, which has a duty to set an example in all its procedures, and to respect the commitments set out in its own terms and conditions for awarding public contracts. Citizens are also the losers, as the solemnity of the visit to the monument will long be blurred by controversy and doubt, and it is indeed confidence in a qualitative judging procedure that is the loser in this monumental failure. Finally, let us not forget the teams who devoted long hours and put their soul and expertise into their proposal, legitimately believing in their chances of seeing it evaluated fairly, in compliance with the announced rules. We can all the more understand their immense disappointment that, contrary to good competition practice, the government has not yet had the courage to share the jury’s report.

This sad situation is not irreversible. We see several complementary outcomes:

First of all, and since public funds are also at stake in this affair, let us at the very least demand that the jury’s report be made public as quickly as possible. Out of respect for the competitors, the members of the jury, and in a way for all architects, designers and artists – people of honor and principle at the service of the community – this report will constitute the first stone of a real public debate, impossible without it.

But there’s more. Out of respect for the veterans, let’s ask the government to reverse this bad decision and award the project to the winning team.

Finally, to ensure that this situation does not taint future calls to design and build monuments, as well as public buildings and spaces, we call on the government to respect – and even generalize – a truly qualitative and democratic procedure: the juried project competition.

 

*Extract from the first question of the online survey.

https://www.canada.ca/fr/patrimoine-canadien/services/art-monuments/projets-cours/resultats-sondage-monument-afghanistan.html

Useful links:

https://www.veterans.gc.ca/fra/remembrance/memorials/afghanistan-monument

https://www.canada.ca/fr/anciens-combattants-canada/nouvelles/2023/06/le-gouvernement-du-canada-devoile-le-concept-de-design-selectionne-pour-le-monument-commemoratif-national-de-la-mission-du-canada-en-afghanistan.html

https://www.canada.ca/fr/patrimoine-canadien/services/art-monuments/projets-cours/resultats-sondage-monument-afghanistan.html

https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/chroniques/2023-08-28/monument-commemoratif-de-la-mission-du-canada-en-afghanistan/quand-le-gouvernement-trudeau-ecarte-les-gagnants-du-podium.php

https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/idees/797709/idees-desaveu-nie-excellence-art?

 

Petition launched by a group of artists:

https://www.change.org/p/monument-commémoratif-de-la-mission-du-canada-en-afghanistan-combattre-l-injustice

WRITING, A PRACTICE OF ARCHITECTURE? COMPARATIVE APPROACHES OF TWO ARCHITECTS WITH A PEN

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Why write fiction when you are an architect? If the role of professionals in architecture is not, a priori, to write stories, some of them have a privileged relationship with literature. This is the case of Sergio Morales, a Quebec architect (co-founder of Chevalier Morales Architectes, a studio based in Montreal) and Pierre Blondel, a Belgian architect (founder of Pierre Blondel Architectes, a studio based in Ixelles). We went to meet them in order to better understand the place that writing occupies in their practice as designers (1).

 

Practitioners and teachers, they have in common that they take the pen to expand the limits of representation in architecture. Both of them bring fictional characters to life in their projects, particularly in competition situations. When Sergio Morales summoned Nadia Comaneci and revived Jean Drapeau and Youri Gagarin in the competition for the Montreal Planetarium in 2008, Pierre Blondel invented a story between three characters – Lucie, Marc and Simon – who frequent three buildings he designed. This story is set in the difficult commission of a prostitution center and two social housing buildings in Belgium. It also gave its title to the book L.M.S. et autres nouvelles, published in 2011 by Éditions Fourre-Tout of Liège, followed by Professeur Toumani Inc, published in 2019 by Éditions Ercée of Brussels. In addition, each of our architects is the main writer of the project texts of his studio. For Sergio Morales, there are “many voices in one that passes through a pen”. For Pierre Blondel, this work “in the background” is necessary for the good balance of the architect. Both have also won competitions on both sides of the ocean for a literary institution – a “house” of literature in Quebec or a “museum” of literature in Belgium.

 

The Maison de la Littérature de l’Institut canadien de Québec “particularly touches” Sergio Morales, insofar as it brought “a program that was new”. For the architect, it was a testament to the many forms that literature could take at the time of the competition, in 2011: “We wanted to interest young people with everything that is done in the more current world of literature, whether it is poems on Twitter (…). There is writing everywhere, not only in great works of the 19th century or the beginning of the 20th century here”. Pierre Blondel also testifies to his enthusiasm for the Archives et Musée de la Littérature program, which he began in 2006, “a special thing,” which marked the beginning of the fictions around his projects: “This is my entry, if I may say so, into writing. I like reading a lot, but I had never written before. Blondel thus associated each piece of the planned building with a short story and read all the texts during the competition oral: “There was even an epilogue to the competition that described the building twenty or thirty years later, once it was built. Finally, the literature no longer existed or was no longer of interest, so it was decided to transform the entrance into a reception area for a large mall that was to be built later.

 

What then are the reasons that led our two architects to pursue this fictional writing, taking as a setting their future buildings? Pierre Blondel explains them in the introduction to L.M.S. et autres nouvelles. Words allow him to represent and describe space in a form that favors use, authorizes the introduction of sounds and smells, and breathes lightness into a profession marked by administrative red tape and the weight of responsibilities, but also to defy time, by bringing the project to life even though the construction site has not yet begun. He adds that there is “an almost ‘psychoanalytical’ virtue: I write about things when they are really beyond me. When I started working on religion and boxing, it was completely beyond me. And then literature comes in – and literature is an escape. However, the Belgian architect insists that the fictional text, which he usually starts writing at the beginning of the design process, is not directly related to the configuration of the project: “Architecture is always a kind of mystery: you ask yourself why you do architecture and how you manage to do it. (…) Many people have said to me: “Oh yes, that’s great, for you, literature is a tool for architectural design”. No! Unfortunately, no. The design of the project often goes faster than the story itself, and it is only a few “small links”, a few “small connections” that take place from the text to the project. The only case where writing can have this operative value is, for Pierre Blondel, the situation of pedagogical blockage. Asking a student in a deadlock to “tell a story” can help him or her move forward in the project process.

 

The writing occupies a very different place in the projection for Sergio Morales. On the contrary, it is a “design tool” in its own right, “a real driving force in the project”. The writing activity is concomitant, even intrinsic to the design: “The discourse of the project – and this is something that has become obvious to me – is written at the same time as the project”. He insists: “There is not the discourse before, then the project after”. Moreover, this writing that transforms the project is a narrative that is always in motion: “Sometimes it can be written afterwards, in retrospection – we rewrite the discourse. The architect “images” the project as much as he writes it. The text constitutes in fact “a way of approaching the context which is more creative and imaginative, which is that of going to understand, the history the events, the accidents of emotional nature which tint the places”. The words sculpt, the pen already configures the building in the making: “Writing is like a can opener, it serves to open the project to an original reading. A design tool as powerful as the sketch, the three-dimensional image or the model, writing in a competition situation retains a certain specificity, according to Sergio Morales: “For this exercise, we have to sit down, think, organize our ideas, make sure we are clear. It’s not really creative writing, but there is something that appears in the text that feeds us. The characters introduced in the stories of the architect are so many “voices to be heard”, which constitute the primary function of writing according to Sergio Morales, “that of a channel of transmission to the object, that is to say that what is written in the end, it would be nice to be able to read it in the building”.

 

As to whether architectural writing is self-conscious, that is to say, whether there is writing tinged with disciplinary specificity in architecture, our two architects remain cautious. Pierre Blondel considers that fictional writing is singular in that it relieves the architect of financial and legal responsibilities: “Writing is a light thing. It takes as much time as architecture – you have to reread a hundred times – but it’s different. Yet he notes that his writing does have something “architectural” about it, its structure sometimes akin to pictorial composition or mirror construction: “What I’ve noticed – and what several people have pointed out to me – is that a lot of the short stories and stories are very strongly ‘constructed. For example, Berger, is a story composed with several characters that must lead to a final tableau. It is a choral writing where each one has his part in the edifice and must, at some point, participate in what will be this final”. Sergio Morales considers that he writes texts in architecture as he would write texts called “literary”: “I would say that it is not an architectural writing as such, it is just a fiction that is built and is fed by a project in the making.

 

In answer to our initial question – why write fiction when you are an architect? – we could say that if architects write fictions around the architectural project, it is because this one is already, by essence, fictional (2). Our comparison highlights two ways of approaching writing in architecture. On the side of Sergio Morales, we can speak of a productive writing that is intrinsic to the exercise of architecture. This textuality is addressed to certain people who need to be convinced, and not only for the pleasure of writing. A real design tool, it is operative and performative. The text reconfigures the building in the process of being made. We can therefore speak of a writing of the project. For Pierre Blondel, the writing is more independent, accompanying, even parallel to the exercise of the project. More like writing “for oneself”, it participates in the architect’s equilibrium and does not follow the same temporality as the project in the process of being woven. It constitutes an escape, a step back. Its prescription makes it possible to solve a blockage in a student. It also gained its autonomy compared to the buildings in the making, since it exists in the form of published works – two “literary buildings”. We will then speak of writing as a project. The status of writing in a competition situation remains to be determined. Is it a function of the designer, or is it a side activity? Are there juxtapositions or collisions between architecture and literature? To use Roland Barthes’ expression (3), is the architect with a pen an “écrivant” or an “écrivain” (4)?

  1. The fragments of quotations in quotation marks in this post are transcripts of interviews conducted respectively with Sergio Morales and Pierre Blondel by Zoom in the spring of 2021.
  2. According to Jean-Pierre Boutinet, the paradigm of any project is that of an object that is both real and mental: “Every building constructed expresses in a certain way the realization of a project or at least of an intention that it has endeavored at a certain time to concretize. The project is thus the obligatory passage towards the realization of the architectural work. This last, once completed is on its side the translation more or less faithful of an old project which anticipated it but does not exist any more “, in Anthropologie du projet, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 2012 (first edition 1990), p.189
  3. Roland Barthes, “Écrivains et écrivants”, in Essais critiques, Seuil, 1964
  4. See the beautiful reflection proposed by Jean-Louis Cohen on the occasion of a study day at the Collège de France. Architecture and literature: fiction, rhetoric and poetics, May 2021 (replay online).

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ROCOCO, BY FRANÇOIS CHASLIN: AN AWARD-WINNING BOOK ON ARCHITECTURE, WIDELY ACCLAIMED FOR ITS FORM AND CONTENT

Gold Medal in the Book Design category at the European Design Award in Warsaw in 2019, winner of the student selection of the Best Dutch Book Design 2018, and more recently awarded the Architecture Book Prize by the Academy of Architecture in October 2019 (see our post), François Chaslin’s latest book is still being rewarded, in France and internationally.

In Rococo ou drôle d’oiseaux, published by Éditions Non Standard and modestly presented by the author as “entertainment”, Chaslin returns with humour and poetry to the recent controversies that surrounded Le Corbusier. A concise summary warns the reader that he is about to discover “The Le Corbusier affair as seen by one of its protagonists, with considerations on criticism, plagiarism, hogwash and denunciation” (1). But beyond apparent amusement and fable, Chaslin’s verve is also representative of quality writing in architecture, and his commitment is undoubtedly emblematic of a textuality specific to the discipline. The text can, moreover, be understood in turn alone or supported by the author’s drawings, hidden between the pages.

But what are the members of the prize juries looking for: the content – the text, the tropical horizon, even the literary quality? Or the form – the physical medium, the printed matter punctuated by admirable drawings that never cease to amaze us as we cut the paper?

In this award-winning book, the architect-writer depicts a disciplinary universe populated by colourful characters, a small world where proud roosters, croaking crows and cuckoo cuckoo looters intertwine. Such a work had to have a title that would make its mark; in “Prélude”, François Chaslin preferred “Drôles d’oiseaux” (“Funny Birds”), and with good reason: “Distracted booksellers would not present it next to Chopin’s twenty-four preludes or, even worse, in the architecture section, this confidential discipline relegated to a dark corridor, near the unsold stockroom” (2), in short, “where no one ever goes” (3). Books on architecture seem to be sidelined, or at least unknown to the general public – no one seems to read books written by architects; at most, they are leafed through.

In the video presentation of the publication, François Chaslin advises, not without humour, not to read his book in order to be able to talk about it better: “This is something I discovered: you talk much better about a book if you haven’t read it… this is why we could invite people not to buy it and not to read it” (4). To go further, architecture would have little aura or meaning without the text, as the architect and architectural historian Jean-Louis Cohen pointed out when he was awarded an honorary doctorate at the Université de Montréal, “The written word is crucial to the architectural culture that buildings and printed books, whether by architects or critics, constitute inseparably” (5).

In the eyes of François Chaslin, Rococo as a printed book remains “a beautiful object, but not a beautiful book; I don’t like the idea of a beautiful book, nor a book as an object – adds the author – it is a subject, it is a book with a personality” (6). While he was reluctant to add the drawings of birds, which could comment on the text and inject possible irony, Chaslin finally accepted his publisher’s idea by hiding the images in the folds of the book: “You can read the text without ever meeting a bird” (7).

So, let’s ask the question again: What do the jurors value in the prizes awarded to Rococo: the words or the audacity of the layout (8)? In a previous reflection on the Academy of Architecture Book Prizes, we had noted that the literary dimension of the work was targeted, the jury having appreciated its “literary, original and humorous form” (10). But the titles of the two other prizes won by Rococo lead us to believe that the “design” of the book is undoubtedly the element that prevails over textuality. This intuition would be confirmed by the criteria announced for the Best Dutch Book Design 2018 (note that this was the student selection): “the 295 entries were evaluated for their distinctive qualities by a panel of experts looking for outstanding work in aspects such as content, design, image editing, typography, choice of materials, printing and binding” (10).

Finally, with regard to the prize awarded by the European Design Award in Warsaw in 2019, the criteria focus on three areas of visuals: ‘1 – Quality of design, including the use of images, typography; 2 – Creativity, originality and artistic quality; 3 – Relevance, the extent to which the design meets the specific purpose for which it was conceived’ (11). The literary quality of Chaslin’s book would be secondary to image and composition. This observation echoes the observations of Pierre Chabard and Marilena Kourniati in their book Raisons d’écrire: “(…) from the point of view of material form, architects’ books privilege the articulation between text and images, between discourse and itinerary; from the point of view of reading, they are often less read than consulted, traversed in their visual narrative. (…) Indeed, more than writing books, architects know how to make hybrid editorial objects that have the ability to transform themselves to adjust to constantly changing conditions” (12).

 

  • (1) Back cover of the book; Chaslin, François. Rococo, ou drôles d’oiseaux (divertissement), Éditions Non Standard, Paris, 2018
  • (2) Chaslin, François. Rococo, ou drôles d’oiseaux (divertissement), Éditions Non Standard, Paris, 2018, p.32
  • (3) Chaslin, François. Rococo, ou drôles d’oiseaux (divertissement), Éditions Non Standard, Paris, 2018, p.32
  • (4) Transcription of an extract at 5’20 of the Rococo presentation video at the Librairie La Galerne (https://www.lagalerne.com/videos/5988004/details/)
  • (5) Extract from the speech for the honorary doctorate awarded to Professor Jean-Louis Cohen in 2019 (https://nouvelles.umontreal.ca/article/2019/08/28/trois-doctorats-honorifiques-decernes-aux-plus-recentes-collations-des-grades/)
  • (6) Transcript of an extract at 1’46 from the Rococo presentation video at the Librairie La Galerne (https://www.lagalerne.com/videos/5988004/details/)
  • (7) Transcript of an excerpt at 3’00 of the Rococo presentation video at the Librairie La Galerne (https://www.lagalerne.com/videos/5988004/details/)
  • (8) It should be noted that the design of the book is signed by Élodie Boyer and Patrick Doan (https://editions-non-standard.com/books/rococo)
  • (9) See http://academie-architecture.fr/prix-du-livre-darchitecyre-et-du-livre-pour-la-jeunesse-2019/, Note on the Architectural Book Awards (p.4/5), page consulted on 31 October 2019
  • (10) Information found at https://debestverzorgdeboeken.nl/en/news/the-best-dutch-book-designs-of-2018-announced/, accessed February 26, 2020
  • (11) Information found at https://europeandesign.org/ed-awards/rules/, accessed February 26, 2020
  • (12) Pierre Chabard and Marilena Kourniati, Raisons d’écrire. Livres d’architectes 1945-1999, Éditions de la Villette, Paris, 2013, p.11

 

PARADOXES OF HERITAGE AWARD

Evolution of award titles related to heritage issues in Quebec (2009-2019)

What should we think of awards of excellence for heritage transformations, particularly in the Quebec context?  According to the recurrence of this type of distinction in the contemporary landscape of architectural awards, heritage would be one of the canonical categories of architectural excellence. Despite their number, the impressive variability in the nature of the buildings awarded these awards seems to be equalled only by their titles. In Canada, the categories judged range from preservation to heritage conservation, to restoration, extension or renovation as one might legitimately expect. On the other hand, it is curious to see notions that seem as far removed from heritage as recycling, sustainable development, or innovation rewarding intervention on the existing. Contrary to what we will call “programmatic” awards that reward buildings with specific functions, these “heritage” awards can be granted to any type of architectural intervention, as long as it concerns a built site, whether or not it has a historical value.

This terminological vagueness could evoke the famous lecture given by the language philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein in 1932 at the University of Cambridge (1) where, in desperation to define the term “game” according to the entirety of the productions it covers, he came to the conclusion that this concept refers less to a common essence than to family likenesses. In fact, if all the artefacts likely to correspond to this family name have fundamentally no common characteristics, they are very similar from one generation to the next: A resembles B, which admits another characteristic in common with C, and so on.  In other words, the multiple productions of the discipline that we do not hesitate to call “heritage” have relationships that are sometimes as distorted as the very definition of the word and the different values to which it refers.

Well known to historians, restorers and architects, these values were described for the first time in 1903 by Alois Reigl in a report commissioned by the Central Commission for Historic Monuments in Austria: the now famous Modern Cult of Monuments (2). In this text, Riegl distinguishes between two categories of value attributed to historical monuments and to heritage in general: the ” commemorative values” (Erinnerungszerte) and the “present values” (Gegenwartswerte). For Riegl, these values do not compete with each other and regularly overlap. His decomposition was based on a pragmatic and political objective in that it was primarily intended to provide a basis for legislation and then recommendations for restoration.

However, this distinction seems to be at the origin of the multiplication of titles among the organizations that proposed to distribute award and thus to categorize the awarded projects. For example, in 2009, the Ordre des Architectes du Québec already dissociated reconversion, embodied by so-called “recycling” awards that essentially rewarded the consideration of contemporary utilitarian value, from conservation and restoration, which referred instead to the values of memory – the age-value and historical value.

Although this binary perception of the disciplines of restoration seemed adequate for the organization until 2015, the titles of its mentions seem to be in perpetual questioning. As of 2013, the term “recycling” will take a back seat to designate interventions of high contemporary utilitarian value, but will be coupled with a sustainable development mention, which rewards the same type of building, more or less.

The 2017 edition sees a major upheaval within these categories and this division disappears in favour of the very neutral Mise en valeur du Patrimoine, awarded that year to the renovation of the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier by Atelier TAG + Jodoin Lamarre Pratte architects in consortium. The OAQ Grand Prix will be awarded to the Maison de la littérature de Québec, a project by the Chevalier Morales agency whose heritage quality is now attested. Although the project was praised by the Order for its consideration of religious heritage – even more so than for the qualities of its plan in relation to its program – the project was nevertheless awarded in the cultural building category. At the same time, the sustainable development mention, which has been recurring since 2013, was changed to a green building mention for this edition, rewarding in particular a project to recycle industrial buildings without demolition.

In 2020, the OAQ will retain the category of Heritage Development but will divide it into two subgroups which refer to the binary distinction that has disappeared over the past five years: “conservation/restoration” and “conversion/expansion”. By combining these terms under the same category, the OAQ acknowledges the need to combine commemorative and present values. While they always distinguish between dissimilar project practices, they all qualify as “heritage”. In doing so, they are thus closer to the categorization proposed by Opération Patrimoine Montréal (formerly known as the Opération Patrimoine Architectural), which does not reward works by categorizing them, but rewards practices as shown by the action verbs in the award titles: “take care”, “bring back to life”, “know-how”, “make known” and “act together”(3).

The fluctuation of heritage mentions in the awards we observe in the case of the Ordre des Architectes du Québec awards is only an indication of a broader disciplinary problem: that of the definition of heritage and its scope within the architectural disciplinary field. If conservation and restoration practices – even extension or recycling – are as old as the discipline itself, it is natural that vectors of standards representing the profession identify them and reward contemporary productions that they deem exemplary. Nevertheless, it appears that some of these productions have absolutely nothing in common, like the so-called “game” elements observed by Wittgenstein. Consequently, by forcing their inscription within the same taxon, these awards contribute to obscure an already protean definition of heritage much more than to shed light on it as they might suggest at first glance.

  • (1) Marjorie Perloff, Wittgenstein’s ladder: poetic language and the strangeness of the ordinary (Chicago (Ill.) ; University of Chicago Press, 1996). p. 60
  • (2) Alois Riegl, The Modern Cult of Monuments: Its Character and Its Origin. (Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press, 1982).
  • (3) https://ville.montreal.qc.ca/operationpatrimoine/laureats/2019

Aurélien Catros

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL IN QUEBEC IN 1964: SAMPLE PLANS FOR INDUSTRIALIZATION

“Concours pour écoles primaires, Québec, 1964”. Top image, project by Rosen, Caruso, Vecsei, bottom image project by Melvin Charney (see Canadian Competitions Catalogue)

Organized by the government of Quebec, the “provincial architecture competition for elementary school” was launched in the midst of the “quiet revolution”, under the watchful eye of the religious authorities hitherto in charge of education. Traditional schools had to make way for new spatial organizations and a vast educational project began with the publication of the now famous “Parent Report” (1964). What is felt today as the sad memory of the so-called “prefabricated” places of education is probably not what the organizers had foreseen in terms of the renewal of school architecture. The fact remains that the analysis of the jury report shows the disproportionate importance of two criteria that converged on the same principle: identifying new standard plans and verifying that they could accommodate the industrialization of construction. 

Nearly sixty years after its publication, the “Parent Report” is today a historical document, sometimes obsolete. However, at the time of its publication, the report directed by Alphonse-Marie Parent, in 5 volumes of nearly 1500 pages, was published by the Royal Commission on Education between 1963 and 1964 and was a milestone in the “quiet revolution” in Quebec.  It proposed, no more and no less, the creation of a Ministry of Education, compulsory schooling until the age of 16, the creation of “CEGEPs” and, in general, the democratization of higher education. In other words, we are moving from religious education to education for all, as Claude Corbo, former rector of the Université du Québec à Montréal, wrote in 2002.

It is in this vast educational site in Quebec that the “provincial architecture competition for elementary schools” was organized as early as 1964. Its goal was to propose new concepts for elementary schools and was looking for “model plans”. The program – which will appear summary in terms of contemporary “functional and technical programs” (FTP) – included: twelve classrooms, including one kindergarten class, a library, a dining room, a gathering space as well as changing rooms and staff quarters. The clientelism that the academic authorities are sometimes criticized for was already included in the “list of premises”: “Immediate environment: Taking into account the different clienteles: schoolchildren, faculty and the general public. Provide for each of these clienteles to have access to the school either on foot or in motor vehicles. »

Chaired by the architect Jean Damphouse, the jury was composed of the architects Raymond Affleck, Jean Paul Carlhian, Alfred Roth, Victor Prus, and the “designer” (sic in the publications) François Lamy. It should be noted that the jury did not include an expert in education or a representative of the school milieu, but was composed of an industrial designer and five architects, including the famous Alfred Roth, considered the Swiss expert for having contributed to the revival of educational architecture in the 1950s. Assistant to Le Corbusier and then collaborator of Marcel Breuer, representative of the “Neues Bauen” movement, the modernist “new objectivity”, Alfred Roth settled in Zurich and worked regularly with Alvar Aalto.

In other words, the program of the 1964 “Canadian” competition must have seemed elementary to the Swiss modernist. It was asked to take into account the immediate environment, without specifying which one, and three types of classrooms were distinguished according to whether they accommodated 30, 33 or 35 students. It was suggested, for example, that for classrooms of 35 students, during a teaching period, students would be required to use three different methods of work: work in homogeneous groups, work in sub-groups for research, and individual work for further training.

Equipped with such pedagogical refinement, the jury selected 14 projects, according to particularly deterministic criteria, including those of Melvin Charney, Jean Michaud, from the Rosen, Caruso, Vecsei consortium and the Ouellet, Reeves, Guité, Alain consortium. The description of the fourteen projects and the jury’s comments appeared in the April 1965 issue of Architecture-Bâtiment-Construction magazine, and while black and white printed graphic documents are sometimes difficult to read today, the dualism of the jury’s comments is clearly displayed in two columns of lapidary statements listing the “pros” and “cons”.

For one project, the jury emphasized that “its universal character is suitable for possible prefabrication” because its “plan is clear and well-disciplined”, for another, that it “lends itself to expansion” or that “the plan is well organized”, that the “project lends itself to expansion possibilities” or that the “good natural lighting of the classrooms by means of skylights is well designed”. Melvin Charney’s project is credited as an “interesting prefabrication proposal” whose fire stairs are described as “pretentious”. The “difference in levels between the cafeteria and the common room” of the beautiful modernist project by St-Gelais, Tremblay and Tremblay is deplored, while the extreme refinement of the project by Rosen, Caruso, Vecsei, a subtle and skillful mix of borrowings from the architectures of Louis Kahn and Aldo Van Eyck, is considered a “project well studied in all its aspects” but whose “abundance of exterior walls and excess circulation surfaces” leads to fears of “high construction costs”.

The comparative publication of the competition results in April 1965, in the only specialized Quebec magazine at the time, Architecture – Bâtiment – Construction, had a great impact on the imagination of architects for more than a decade, with sometimes questionable results.

There were only a few competitions in the field of education in Canada in the 1960s and 1970s, mainly for universities, and it was not until the late 1980s and especially the 1990s that the aging building stock required new consultations and reflections. These were strongly encouraged, this time, by the numerous studies, mainly sociological, carried out in particular in the Swiss and French contexts. However, in a characteristic way and contrary to the importance of competitions dedicated to school buildings in all European countries, one can legitimately be surprised that schools are not considered as architectural issues in North America.

More on this competition on the Canadian Competitions Catalogue 

Jean-Pierre Chupin

HENRY N. COBB’S AWARD-WINNING SKYSCRAPERS

Place Ville Marie in Montréal (1955-62), Henry N. Cobb in his office (February 2019), the John Hancock Tower in Boston (1967-76)

With the passing away of Henry N. Cobb on March 2nd, 2020, North American architecture has lost one of his most respected professionals—a man acclaimed for his designs as well as for his human dimension.

A native of Boston in 1926, and a graduate of Harvard University’s School of Design in 1947. He was exposed to a new Bauhaus-derived pedagogy at the time of Walter Gropius’ direction, but also to other forms of modernist discourse: from the writings of Le Corbusier to the aphorisms of Mies van der Rohe, who famously saw in architecture “powerful ethics as much as an aesthetic.” Gropius put the emphasis on the social potential of high-rise buildings, as illustrated in Cobb’s diploma thesis for a cluster of housing towers. One of his instructors was Ieoh Ming Pei, with whom he would later create a successful architectural firm in New York.

It was on February 19, 2019 that I met Mr. Harry Cobb in his apartment, on the ground-floor of a prewar building on Manhattan’s East 78th Street in. Although I was planning to interview him specifically about his experience in the making of Place Ville Marie in Montréal (1955-62), and his theories on the skyscrapers, the talk gave way to a comparative analysis of Place Ville Marie and the John Hancock Tower, which was built later in Boston (1967-76), and remained the structure of which Harry was the proudest, as shown by all his writings. If the Montreal tower was left without a single award, the Boston one won no less than five awards.

Throughout his professional lifetime, Henry Cobb was either the lead designer, or part of the team of designers, in 18 cases of high-rise buildings (1). These 18 towers received a total of 47 awards. Among them, not more than 6 have Cobb as the lead designer. For the other 12, he was an active member of the team at work on the design, which included 2 architects, except for Palazzo Lombardia in Milan, for which they were 4 of them. Only 5 buildings among these 18 never received an award: 3 in the category of collaborative design and 2 for which he was a solo designer. In the category of collaborative designs, the Bank of China on Bryant Park in New York (2010–16) received a total of 9 awards. In the category of buildings for which Henry Cobb was the solo designer, the John Hancock Tower has a total of five awards. One wonders why the Place Ville Marie ensemble, which has become one of the most iconic landmarks of postwar modernism in Montreal and in fact in Canada, with its characteristic as first cruciform structure combining several programs, never received any recognition.

These two buildings have undoubtedly become turning point page in Cobb’s carrier. Yet, according to the theory he has proposed, these two buildings cannot be considered as skyscrapers, as they don’t really generate a skyline, and don’t “scrape the sky”. Strangely enough, as Harry Cobb affirmed in the February 2019 interview, Place Ville Marie was only “a very large building,” (2). For him, the Montréal scheme was a self-referential building, an autonomous entity governed by internal systems (3). On the other hand, the John Hancock Tower had been shaped by the contingent determinants of its delicate historic context, in particular Henry Hobson Richardson’s Trinity Church.

The John Hancock commission for a skyscraper had been first given to Pei in the 1950s, and he proposed a set of two buildings on Copley Plaza. After the client rejected this scheme in 1966, requesting a single object on the site, Cobb took the responsibility of the design. His initial proposal was unanimously rejected at first by the local community, as it did not address the historical context. Later, it would be submitted to a heated critique of Boston’s public opinion, as the glass façade panels started falling down one after the next. It took complex legal and technical expertise to finally clear the reputation of the architect.

The earliest awards were specifically dedicated to the building itself, but to the materials it used, and to its urban parti. It received the Prestressed Concrete Institute Award in 1973 and the Annual Award on the Highway & Its Environment, for John Hancock Place Garage, in 1976 and its setting in the urban fabric of Boston. In 1983 it received the Harleston Parker Medal of the Boston Society of Architects, dedicated to architects who built monuments or building considered as the beautiful piece of architecture within Boston and its Metropolitan Area. Considering that the reputation of this building had been primarily smeared by the façade fiasco, one wonders whether these awards were not, in the end, some symbolic compensations.

Back to the history of the firm born in 1955, and in which Pei, Cobb and James I. Freed were the founding partners, the Place Ville Marie was unquestionably the first high-rise building erected by the office, under the direct responsibility of Cobb, as Pei was then busy traveling for other urban planning projects. Beyond this division of projects between partners—Freed being particularly engaged in the design of housing—Pei has engaged the building of cultural edifices and of high-rise structures arranged in groups: he assembled for instance three towers framing a plaza at Society Hills in Philadelphia (1964) and University Plaza in New York (1967). It is difficult to ascertain if Cobb was influenced by his senior or whether it went the other way around. It is obvious, however, that the first two designs of Henry N. Cobb had a determining role for the firm at large. The towers for Montréal and then for Boston paved the way for the later award-winning projects of a by now legendary team.

Rest in peace Mr. Henry N. Cobb.

Mandana Bafghinia.

  • 1) https://www.pcf-p.com/projects/type/tall-buildings/
  • 2) Henry N. Cobb, in conversation with Mandana Bafghinia, New York, February 19th, 2019.
  • 3) Henry N. Cobb, Henry N. Cobb: Words & Works 1948–2018: Scenes from a Life in Architecture. New York, The Monacelli Press, 2018.

BOOK AWARDS OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY OF ARCHITECTURE

In October 2019, on the National Days of Architecture, the Academy of Architecture announced the winning work of its 25th edition of the Book Prize, and the 1st winner of the Book Prize for young people. The Academy Book Prize is annual, and rewards quality architectural works published the previous year, from May to May.

The distinction was created in 1994 by the Academy of Architecture, on an idea by Catherine Seyler and by Gérard Granval, who chaired the institution until 2018. In reaction to the observation that architectural culture is too little known in France despite the attempts to raise awareness deployed by cultural institutions, the mission of this award is to publicize architecture by presenting works of the discipline, whatever the nature of the writing proposed: “The objective of the Book Prize architecture is to enhance any form of architectural culture, whether scholarly, fictional, critical, sensitive or literary, or even committed to the major causes of architectural and urban space ”(1).

The book is therefore considered to be the favored means of provoking interest, a desire for architecture, at all ages. Through the implementation of the Children’s Book Prize, awareness is now spreading to the youth. Varied profiles are invited to participate. Judging by this one condition, that the prize-winning text offers a new perspective on the discipline or that it contributes to it … and that it is of quality, we begin to imagine that the criteria of the competition and the jury reports are likely to inform an understanding of the nature of quality writing in architecture, and even of its possible literary nature (2).

While the Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM) Architecture Book Award is based each year on the book’s design, the quality of its materials and its finish, as well as its level of innovation to pass judgment (see our post), the Academy Book Award risks defining quality in architectural writing. The first criterion would consist in “distinguishing a work carrying momentum, a question, a knowledge, a writing carrying meaning with regard to architecture, vis-à-vis history as vis-à-vis visuality” (3).

On this same note on the Architecture Book Awards, the organization is quick to add other criteria, deemed more precise: the theme and the work of the author are valued, although some exceptions may be identified. The writing must be clear, accessible and rigorous. The work must interest a large audience and be easily transmitted. The edition – or the argument of the collection of the work – must be of quality, and its reading must be comfortable. Finally, the criterion relating to the Children’s Book is located at the end of the same list, and relates to the quality of the illustrations, graphics and model (4).

The jury is made up each year of a dozen members from various backgrounds. The 2019 edition brought together 13 personalities. The deliberations took place on October 7, outside the premises of the Academy, at Centre d’architecture et d’urbanisme de Lille. This trip, during a judgment session, was an opportunity for the various players on the architectural scene to meet. The Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs, the City of Lille, the National Schools of Architecture, the Councils of Architecture, Urbanism and the Environment, the City Workshop, Architecture, Landscape, as well as the corresponding architects of the Academy of Architecture in Hauts de France were thus able to participate in decision-making.

The two Academy prizes were awarded by the Minister of Culture, in the presence of the President of the Academy of Architecture, on October 18, 2019 at the la Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine de Paris. The Architecture Award for Youth received 73 proposals for its first component. Note that all the publishers represented were French, and that the theme of the world was particularly represented (the word appears in 3 titles nominated out of 5). Habiter le monde (Éditions de La Martinière) by Anne Jonas and Lou Rihn was the book which won the prize for the illustrations presented, as well as “for the intelligence of his texts adapted to youth, clear and instructive. and connecting architecture and cities around the world to the diversity of their cultures” (5).

Note that a special Prize was awarded by the jury to Benjamin Mouton for Sens et Renaissance du patrimoine architectural (Éditions des Cendres, Cité de architecture et du Patrimoine – organization and place of the awarding of the prize), welcoming “a business that we would like to teach: the publication of thirty years of teaching on heritage ”(6). The only Book Prize awarded to Rococo (Éditions Non-Standard) by François Chaslin because of its “literary, original and humorous form” which “paints a portrait of his through his personal prism media environment that ignited around Le Corbusier” (7).

The appraisement by a jury of excellence awards of the literary character of an architectural text does not however guarantee that a book having received an award in architectural literature could receive a literary award. Architectural writing has an ambiguous status, as Emmanuel Rubio and Yannis Tsiomis point out in the introduction to the book L’architecte à la plume: “(…) falling under too much specialization for them, escaping too often for those … Perhaps this ambiguity is due to its very origin. In a way, the architect’s writing always occupies a secondary place: very often it accompanies the building, the image; at the very least, it seems to find its legitimacy in this other activity – founding – which precedes and exceeds it” (8). This writing which includes architecture, to paraphrase our two authors, would it not come from a textuality of architecture – in comparison with the materiality of architecture – rather than from a form of literature?

Lucie Palombi

Translated by Jade Swail

(1) See http://academie-architecture.fr/prix-du-livre-darchitecyre-et-du-livre-pour-la-jeunesse-2019/, Note sur les Prix du Livre d’architecture (p.1/5), consulted on October 31st 2019 : « Il s’agit de faire rayonner, par la lecture, la culture architecturale qui manque encore fortement en France. Il faut bien sûr saluer le développement des actions remarquables de sensibilisation (publications, expositions, films, reportages, etc) conduites par les institutions, publiques ou privées, dont c’est la mission, ainsi que les progrès de la connaissance apportés par la recherche. Mais il faut poursuivre l’effort et rendre la valeur et la nécessité de l’architecture plus visibles pour les citoyens, susciter l’envie d’architecture des citoyens ».

(2) See http://academie-architecture.fr/prix-du-livre-darchitecyre-et-du-livre-pour-la-jeunesse-2019/, Note sur les Prix du Livre d’architecture (p.1/5), consulted on October 31st 2019

(3) See http://academie-architecture.fr/prix-du-livre-darchitecyre-et-du-livre-pour-la-jeunesse-2019/, Note sur les Prix du Livre d’architecture (p.1/5), consulted on October 31st 2019  : « Tous les types de regards sont appréciés, sans aucun ostracisme pourvu que l’écrit primé apporte un éclairage particulier ou des connaissances sur l’architecture et qu’il soit de qualité »

(4) See http://academie-architecture.fr/prix-du-livre-darchitecyre-et-du-livre-pour-la-jeunesse-2019/, Note sur les Prix du Livre d’architecture (p.1/5), consulted on October 31st 2019  :

« – On s’attache en premier lieu au thème et on privilégie un travail d’auteur, même si des ouvrages savants issus de travaux d’équipe ont parfois été primés.

– L’écriture doit être claire, accessible et rigoureuse.

– On attend que l’ouvrage ait un pouvoir de transmission ou de conviction et puisse intéresser un large public.

– On est attentif à la qualité de l’édition, le cas échéant à l’argument de la collection, sans oublier les qualités de confort de lecture.

– Pour le Livre pour la jeunesse, la qualité des illustrations, graphisme et maquette. »

(5) See http://academie-architecture.fr/prix-du-livre-darchitecyre-et-du-livre-pour-la-jeunesse-2019/, Note sur les Prix du Livre d’architecture (p.3/5), consulted on October 31st 2019

(6) See http://academie-architecture.fr/prix-du-livre-darchitecyre-et-du-livre-pour-la-jeunesse-2019/, Note sur les Prix du Livre d’architecture (p.4/5), consulted on October 31st 2019

(7) See http://academie-architecture.fr/prix-du-livre-darchitecyre-et-du-livre-pour-la-jeunesse-2019/, Note sur les Prix du Livre d’architecture (p.4/5), consulted on October 31st 2019

(8) See Rubio, Emmanuel et Tsiomis, Yannis, L’architecte à la plume, Éditions de La Villette, Paris, 2019, p.5