Arquitecturas invisibles

Abstract

The competition has always been a research tool in need of a knowledge update: the broadcasting of achievements also demonstrates the need for an integrated update of the architect. Not all competitions are equal or set the same objectives, and, unfortunately, to a large extent, they have served as camouflage for questions that go beyond quality. Political or commercial interests tend to confuse the opportunity for promotion with the merit of the project. It would be possible to number many competitions which have supposed a significant advance in architecture in the last century; a certain nostalgia for those times of debate which, together with other similar formulas such as entries in biennials, triennials or exhibitions, were capable of making empirical research from direct practice. On the contrary, today the policy framework of the architectural project is often defined in a manner foreign to real architecture, administratively dominated by a process that prioritiz es legal and technical compliance over the quality of the project itself, confusing the means with the end. Criticism always aims at the author; it forgets the notable procedures which armed a jury gratuitously exonerated of responsibility or that legal framework that asphyxiates both architecture and the spirit of inquiry which should always prevail.