"Architectural Competitions - Histories and Practice", a book on competition history

Anyone in the architecture world knows how a competition works like the back of their hand.

But Architectural Competitions – Histories and Practice looks at them in a different angle, and a scholarly one at that. In fact, architectural competitions have been a research topic since the 1990s in Europe – and academic interest in the subject continues to grow. The book is a compilation of various accounts that illustrates this interest and examines the role and value of the competition in the field of architecture throughout history.

The book was edited by Magnus Rönn, Jonas E Andersson and Gerd Bloxham Zettersten and published by The Royal Institute of Technology and Rio Kulturkooperativ.
Additional writers: Maarit Kaipainen, Antigoni Katsakou, Judith Strong, Pedro Guilherme, João Rocha, Leentje Volker, Kristian Kreiner, Charlotte Svensson, Elisabeth Tostrup, Thomas Hoffmann-Kuhnt and Mats T Beckman.

You can purchase it here.

An excerpt from the Editors' Comments:

"To be in the position of presenting accounts that are exciting as well as instructive and informative on the subject of architectural competitions is a pleasure. Something has happened. Competitions are no longer simply professional praxis for architects and a recurrent exercise for students at schools of architecture. The competition has also turned into a field of research, and this book is part of an effort constituting the architectural competition as a field for studies with scholarly claims. The competition as a field of research reflects a new phase of development with an inception in an academic interest and in a need for research. It is surprising that research into architectural competitions has been so limited until now, in particular when considering the fact that the modern architectural competition is an institution in function in Europe for more than 150 years, having played a central role, both for practicing architects and in architectural education. The introduction of competition rules during the late 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th coincides with architects getting professionally organized in associations and unions."


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