THE GENEVA COMPETITION
The jury of the architectural competition for the erection of a “League of Nations” building at Geneva has recently issued a report.
The Award.
It may be remembered that the jury, when it gave its award some weeks ago, made the surprising announcement that in its opinion not one of the designs submitted was suitable for execution. Such a decision was not in itself improper, for it is obviously better to postpone the work rather than erect a building which the assessors knew to be faulty in some essential respects. Yet when we learn from the report that as many as “three hundred and seventy-seven architects took part in the competition and submitted thousands of drawings expressing their ideas in a practical and artistic form worthy of the object in view, ” we are entitled to ask whether the competitors were treated with the consideration which is their due; for it is probable that these three hundred and seventy-seven sets of drawings have involved their authors in a cash expenditure of not less than a hundred pounds apiece, not to mention the monetary value of their labours, and their principal inducement to enter for the competition was the prospect of winning it and of seeing the League of Nations building executed in accordance with the design placed first. The competitors in the present instance may legitimately lodge several complaints against the jury. In the first place, the jury omitted to adopt a procedure which is becoming ever more common in important architectural competitions and which involves the candidates in a considerable saving of expense — namely, the system of a preliminary contest where sketch designs only are first submitted, to be followed by the final round in which a limited number of not more than about twelve competitors are required to produce finished sets of drawings illustrative of their designs. It is scarcely necessary to enlarge upon the advantages of this method. No competitor need feel a grievance if his sketches indicating the essential outlines of his design are rejected on the ground that they embody a wrong principle from the start. Unfortunately, however, in the present instance one cannot help suspecting that the jury had not come to any very definite conclusion as to the right principles which were required to be embodied in the designs.
“An Analysis of the Report. ”
It may be worth while to take a few sentences from this remarkable report and subject them to
analysis. We read that “the jury endeavoured in the first place to justify the confidence of the competitors by carefully checking the packages received, verifying their contents, and supervising the placing of the plans. ” Obviously it expects the competitors to be especially grateful to it for the performance of these elementary duties. But surely the mechanical task of checking the contents of the various packages is usually left to clerks, who are quite competent to perform it. The picture of learned assessors, including in their number not only distinguished foreign professors of architecture but actually one member of our own Royal Academy, undertaking the duties usually relegated to subordinates is not an exhilarating one, especially as the great labours involved in checking the contents of 377 packages must have reduced them to a state of physical exhaustion, which does much to explain, though it does not justify, the lack of vigour shown and the intellectual indecisiveness expressed in their award. The jury proceeds to commend itself to us by affirming that it was most anxious to judge the designs in strict accordance with the programme and rules, and first of all satisfied itself that the material conditions of the programme and rules had been complied with. It then “studied the plans and examined their archi
tectural and artistic qualities from the point of view of site, facilities for movement inside the building and traffic outside, arrangement and form of the building, construction and harmonious and logical architectural development. ” But surely this statement is supererogatory. Does the jury (presumably paid for their services) expect to receive our special praises for ‘‘studying the plans and examining their
architectural and artistic qualities! And why “artistic” as well as “architectural? ” It is without
precedent that a report of a great architectural competition should be filled out with such useless observations. The award, however, is just as remarkable for what it omits as for what it contains. Further on we read that the jury was confronted with an extraordinary wealth of ideas, but was reluctantly compelled to realise that its work was made difficult by the fact that “a considerable proportion of the com
petitors had not adhered strictly enough to the material conditions required by the programme and rules. ” By this sentence the jury intended to condemn a number of the competitors, but in reality it passed judgment upon itself, for we are right in supposing that if a few of the entrants misunderstood the conditions of the programme they are probably LEAGUE OF NATIONS COMPETITION. FIRST GROUP AWARD.
No. 118. — Mr. Nils Einer Eriksson, Architect, Stockholm.
The jury of the architectural competition for the erection of a “League of Nations” building at Geneva has recently issued a report.
The Award.
It may be remembered that the jury, when it gave its award some weeks ago, made the surprising announcement that in its opinion not one of the designs submitted was suitable for execution. Such a decision was not in itself improper, for it is obviously better to postpone the work rather than erect a building which the assessors knew to be faulty in some essential respects. Yet when we learn from the report that as many as “three hundred and seventy-seven architects took part in the competition and submitted thousands of drawings expressing their ideas in a practical and artistic form worthy of the object in view, ” we are entitled to ask whether the competitors were treated with the consideration which is their due; for it is probable that these three hundred and seventy-seven sets of drawings have involved their authors in a cash expenditure of not less than a hundred pounds apiece, not to mention the monetary value of their labours, and their principal inducement to enter for the competition was the prospect of winning it and of seeing the League of Nations building executed in accordance with the design placed first. The competitors in the present instance may legitimately lodge several complaints against the jury. In the first place, the jury omitted to adopt a procedure which is becoming ever more common in important architectural competitions and which involves the candidates in a considerable saving of expense — namely, the system of a preliminary contest where sketch designs only are first submitted, to be followed by the final round in which a limited number of not more than about twelve competitors are required to produce finished sets of drawings illustrative of their designs. It is scarcely necessary to enlarge upon the advantages of this method. No competitor need feel a grievance if his sketches indicating the essential outlines of his design are rejected on the ground that they embody a wrong principle from the start. Unfortunately, however, in the present instance one cannot help suspecting that the jury had not come to any very definite conclusion as to the right principles which were required to be embodied in the designs.
“An Analysis of the Report. ”
It may be worth while to take a few sentences from this remarkable report and subject them to
analysis. We read that “the jury endeavoured in the first place to justify the confidence of the competitors by carefully checking the packages received, verifying their contents, and supervising the placing of the plans. ” Obviously it expects the competitors to be especially grateful to it for the performance of these elementary duties. But surely the mechanical task of checking the contents of the various packages is usually left to clerks, who are quite competent to perform it. The picture of learned assessors, including in their number not only distinguished foreign professors of architecture but actually one member of our own Royal Academy, undertaking the duties usually relegated to subordinates is not an exhilarating one, especially as the great labours involved in checking the contents of 377 packages must have reduced them to a state of physical exhaustion, which does much to explain, though it does not justify, the lack of vigour shown and the intellectual indecisiveness expressed in their award. The jury proceeds to commend itself to us by affirming that it was most anxious to judge the designs in strict accordance with the programme and rules, and first of all satisfied itself that the material conditions of the programme and rules had been complied with. It then “studied the plans and examined their archi
tectural and artistic qualities from the point of view of site, facilities for movement inside the building and traffic outside, arrangement and form of the building, construction and harmonious and logical architectural development. ” But surely this statement is supererogatory. Does the jury (presumably paid for their services) expect to receive our special praises for ‘‘studying the plans and examining their
architectural and artistic qualities! And why “artistic” as well as “architectural? ” It is without
precedent that a report of a great architectural competition should be filled out with such useless observations. The award, however, is just as remarkable for what it omits as for what it contains. Further on we read that the jury was confronted with an extraordinary wealth of ideas, but was reluctantly compelled to realise that its work was made difficult by the fact that “a considerable proportion of the com
petitors had not adhered strictly enough to the material conditions required by the programme and rules. ” By this sentence the jury intended to condemn a number of the competitors, but in reality it passed judgment upon itself, for we are right in supposing that if a few of the entrants misunderstood the conditions of the programme they are probably LEAGUE OF NATIONS COMPETITION. FIRST GROUP AWARD.
No. 118. — Mr. Nils Einer Eriksson, Architect, Stockholm.