On adopting French citizenship in 1930, Charles-Edouard Jeanneret declared his profession as that of l’homme de lettres, even though by that time he – or rather his alter ego Le Corbusier – was the leading architect in the world. Perhaps Le Corbusier preferred to see himself as a writer because he recognized in literature an autonomous field of cultural production, with more freedom for the creator than was possible in architecture. Certainly he felt bitter about compromises he had to make in order to get his architectural visions realized at least to a degree. At the opening in 1948 of one of his celebrated masterpieces, the Unité d’Habitation in Marseilles, for example, he was openly in tears in front of the cameras.

In the 1980s, drawing more extreme conclusions from the plight of the architect, Leon Krier proudly declared: „I do not build because I am an architect.“ Later avant-gardists, such as Marcos Novak, have chosen to concentrate on virtual architecture in order to maintain their creative freedom. However, for those attempting to produce architecture as the „pure creation of the mind“, to use a Corbusian slogan, there is another opportune venue, that of architectural competitions. In the context of a competition, a designer can present an architectural idea without having to give in to the petty demands of the clients or dilute the concept with technical and economic pragmatics.

But the competition offers this freedom at a price. Time and again, architects grumble about two-timing juries, inane briefs and, in particular, the outrageous costs of producing an entry. Few other professionals would think of investing so much work and resources for an uncertain commission as competing architects do in competitions. From an economic point of view, we might concur with Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who in his Philosophy of Poverty proclaims that the competition's „most certain effect is to ruin those whom it drags in its train“.(1) Is the competition just a means to exploit architectural talent? Or is it rather, as Louis Kahn would have it, „an offering to architecture“? Who stands to gain from architectural competitions? Who is the real winner?

Despite their legitimate doubts, architects do not merely tolerate competitions but actively seek them out, as Hélène Lipstadt points out below. With reference to Pierre Bourdieu's „Fields of Art“, she explains that when architects enter competitions, their practice does not conform to that of other professionals, but rather approaches that of artists and writers, especially as regards autonomy, disinterestedness and the charismatic ideology of creation. Economically, then, the competition may be an upside down world, a reversal of the reality of architectural praxis, but it nonetheless makes sense because it reproduces the belief in the game of architecture, the belief or illusio that blocks out the forbidden question, „Who creates the creators?„
The following two papers continue to explore the loosely Bourdieuean thematic. Mark Gilbert and Kari Jormakka attempt to articulate the logic of the illusio in more detail, focusing on such conundrums as to why prizes are often awarded to projects that violate the brief, why competitions do not always result in a great variety of ideas, why there is no invisible hand that would guide the architecture competition, and why clients may be distrustful of competitions. Combining Bourdieuean insights with Johan Huizinga's and Roger Caillois's theories of play, Manfred Russo surveys the historical development of the profession and describes the architecture competition as a ludocracy that reconciles a number of oppositions: autonomy and dependency, the pleasure of pure creation and the limitations of practice, the aesthetic and the social.

The next two contributions are case studies. Anita Aigner applies Bourdieuean tools to dissect the alleged scandal of the League of Nations competition in 1927. Against received wisdom, Aigner argues that the canonic status Le Corbusier's entry occupies can not be explained without considering his activities as designer and writer, and the contributions by historians, critics, curators, and journalists who act as accomplices; the value is an effect of the field as a whole. In this case, it is striking that the debate was about two camps, not about the individual qualities of a particular entry.

Michael Sorkin focuses on the most publicized competition in recent years, the one for the reconstruction of Ground Zero in New York in 2003. He examines how the decision process was controlled and by whom, and how the larger questions of propriety, program and alternative uses for the site were excluded from public discussion by foregrounding Architecture. For him, the competition was so much smokeblowing, the real plan awaiting the multiple deals involving Larry Silverstein and the Port Authority, the City of New York, and the Governor.

This raises the question of how competitions should be reformed to better guarantee that the interests of the public, the architects, and the clients are met in the process. The last three essays offer a range of suggestions from different perspectives. Martin Pongratz analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of architectural competitions from the point of view of a private commercial enterprise. Starting from the paradox that precisely those companies that preach the virtues of free competition, seem to avoid architectural competitions as a means of choosing a designer, Pongratz recommends making the competition process somewhat more like a normal commission, with a limitation of participation to those who have demonstrated competence in similar design tasks, direct communication between the participants and the client during the process, and more emphasis on non-architectural values in the jurying phase than in traditional competitions.

The final essays look at competitions from the perspective of an architect, especially one who is not yet established. Rudolf Kohoutek analyzes competitions as structural links between the systems of the city, economy, administration, politics, conceptions of living, and as multiple operators which structure a field of decision making and power. Dieter Spath concentrates on the power structures inherent in the preparation for a competition, especially as regards the determination of the questions asked, the information given, and the exclusion of certain kinds of participants. Both writers plead for a stronger role for specifically architectural research, a multidisciplinary approach and open discourse.

1 Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, System of Economical Contradictions, or, The Philosophy of Misery, Translated by Benjamin R. Tucker (Boston: Benjamin R. Tucker, 1888), Section 5.1 1., p. 223.