HOUSE FOR LEBBEUS WOODS
Due:  December 18, 2022.  10th Year of his Death

  

 

Lebbeus Woods’ business card,1970. Image courtesy of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Archives.


WHO WAS LEBBEUS WOODS?

Lebbeus Woods was a force. His drawings, in their unique singularity proved and prove that the real does not belong only to what is built. A good drawing is as real as a good building, and much more real than most buildings which are only buildings, without being architecture.

We have his drawings.

And we have his thinking.

They are actually the same thing: He thought through drawings and he drew through thinking.

A most unusual North American, if we consider just his first business card, if we can call it so... who would place a skull on a “business card ?”
No one… but he did.

And we feel this anti-business card is the Volume 0 of any attempt to understand Lebbeus Woods.

WHAT ARE WE DOING?

The drawings of Lebbeus Woods should continue to inspire us and in fact they do. Their immense skill and vision testify about a creativity unbound.

It is this very creativity that is our chance to transgress death. We do not have a better tool. And even if himself said that Live is Long and Art is Short, reversing the Latin saying, we doubt that he didn’t have sufficient confidence that in all its “shortness” art, indeed, reaches the immeasurableness of eternity. At least, as an aspiration.

Are we deluding ourselves ?

Maybe… but what would life be without this delusion ?

Some people think that art imitates life, but in fact, in some cases at least, the very opposite happens: life imitates art.

So let’s imagine A HOUSE FOR LEBBEUS WOODS.


HOW WOULD A HOUSE FOR LEBBEUS WOODS LOOK LIKE?

Would it be a ruin ?
Would it be aloof on a cliff ?
Would it be exploded ?
Would it be imploded ?
Would it be lava-like, earth and sky quaked ?
How would it be ?

We do know it won’t be placid. No, three time no.

It would be turbulent, tumultuous, it would be perhaps at war with itself.

Design,  a house at war with itself.

THE ULTIMATE HOUSE THAT RESISTS.

THAT RESISTS EVERYTHING, INCLUDING ITS OWN PREMISES AND PRESUMPTIONS.

DESIGN A HOUSE THAT SAYS NO TO EVERYTHING, IN ORDER TO SAY A FUNDAMENTAL, PRIMORDIAL NEW YES.


JURY

Christoph a. Kumpusch (chair); Head Forward-slash ( / ) Architektur; Co-Founder Mutating Cities; Director Extraction Lab + Faculty Columbia GSAPP
Devanshi Agarwal; Speculative Architect and Theorist
Amina Blacksher; Principal, ATELIER AMINA; Faculty Columbia GSAPP
Remi Connolly-Taylor; Founder REMI.C.T. Studio; Co-Founder Kit London
Yolande Daniels; Co-founding Principal studioSUMO NY+LA; Faculty MIT
Phillip Denny; Editor-at-Large, New York Review of Architecture
Jovani Furlan; Principal New York City Ballet
Salomon Frausto; Architectural Theorist, Editor, Curator and Educator; Director The Berlage Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture and Urban Design
Andrew Holder; Co-Principal The LADG; Director MArch and Faculty Harvard GSD
Ivan L. Munuera; Critic and Curator at the intersection of culture, technology, politics, and bodily practices; Faculty Bard College
Rachely Rotem; Co-Founder MODU Architecture; Faculty Yale University
Praditi Dinesh Singh; Urbanist, Disaster + Resilience Researcher
Nada Taryam; Founder Architecture + Other Things; BEEAH Group Sharjah UAE
Anthony Titus; Principal, TITUS Studio; Faculty and Coordinator, RPI Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Hrag Vartanian; Decolonial Curator; Art Critic Futurist; EIC/Co-Founder Hyperallergic    

SUBMISSION AND PARTICIPATION


Lebbeus Woods departed with HurricanE Sandy, October 30, 3:20AM

Be Incandescent and create One Image / One Model / One Clip

ENTRY INSTRUCTIONS:  MUST READ

SCHEDULE

December 10, 2022;  Register for Competition.  Click Here.
December 18, 2022;  Submission of Work.   ICARCH posts Work Online.
January 2023;  Zoom Dialogue about the House for Lebbeus Woods

BENEFITS

Engagement with alternative creators and thinkers in architecture worldwide
Zoom presentation of your work and dialogue with others including jurors.
Work posted on ICARCH.org for many years.
Zoom dialogue posted on YouTube.
Inclusion of your name as a participant in international press releases from ICARCH.
Possible selection of your work for the 2023 ICARCH publication on 20 years of Competitions.

PRIZES

At the moment, ICARCH does not provide cash prizes nor require entry fees.
Dan Coma will select "best of" entries for posting online and press releases.

If you have any questions, please contact us at info@icarch.org.


Thank you.

I C A R C H
www.icarch.org