Review of Iran's Architecture Competition Experience

The custom of holding competitions for the awarding of commissions is principally confined to disciplines such as architecture and urban design, graphic design, sculpture — fields that may be grouped under the general rubric of design. By contrast, in engineering projects the awarding of work is typically conducted through tenders, in which the cost of the project, the technical quality of the personnel, and the equipment of the engineering firms are evaluated. In other forms of design, such as industrial design, the stimulation of competition takes place through different means — namely, through the granting of patents, which is a way of formally recognizing a creative idea while limiting the possibility of copying or unauthorized exploitation of it. In all these methods, the principal aim is the encouragement of artistic creativity, innovation, and invention, and the attainment of superior designs and extraordinary qualities.

This custom has a very long history in the architecture of the world. A. Smith, in “Inscriptions of the Acropolis of Athens,” published in the journal RIBA in 1926, wrote that in 448 BC the design of a war memorial was put to competition. The submitted designs were displayed for public viewing for ten days, and it was stipulated that the people should judge them. This custom, like other borrowings of the West from ancient Greece, continued throughout all the periods of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and thereafter — though the procedures and methods of work varied across periods and countries. But it generally gave rise to the dissemination of new artistic styles and trends in architecture.

Architecture and urban design competitions, which reached their peak in 19th-century England, were a manifestation of the assertion of new artistic tendencies. Thus, the Gothic Revival in England was achieved through the holding of a series of competitions, and Modernism established its firm foothold in Western architecture through competitions. The role of competitions in the second half of the twentieth century — especially international competitions — in introducing and promoting Post-Modernist and Deconstructivist tendencies hardly needs recounting.

One can therefore readily conclude that the primary product of architecture competitions has been the nurturing of talents and the promotion of innovations, achieved through the democratic distribution of work by means of the competition mechanism.

The Iranian Experience

In Iran — setting aside the anecdote that the design of the Iwan of Ctesiphon (Taq-e Kasra) was allegedly selected through a competition — the holding of architecture and urban design competitions, like other borrowings of our society from Western civilization, became established in the early years of this century. In confirmation of this view, one may cite two examples of such competition announcements in the newspaper Ettela'at, and the biography of the engineer Vartan in the journal Architect, suggesting that the government of the time recognized his abilities after he won several architectural competitions and employed him. The holding of architecture and urban design competitions was most prevalent during the Second Pahlavi era, and there was even one international competition — the design of the National Library of Iran. Although this testifies to the growing strength of the practice of holding such competitions and its relative prevalence in the professional community, contrary to the customary practice in Western countries, these competitions never became systematized.

In the years following the Revolution, the competition for the Hashemi complex — the Academies of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1373 (1994) — marked a turning point, inaugurating a series of architecture and urban design competitions that played an effective role in generating excitement and rivalry among architectural offices, young architects, and students, and which laid the groundwork for theoretical and practical architectural discourse in the country that had remained stagnant in the first decade after the Revolution.

Based on information obtained from some of these competitions, a table has been compiled that more or less shows their general characteristics.

The information in the table below is based on written and verbal statements of participants in these competitions and on some reports published in Abadi magazine. However, given the absence of documented records for some entries, the information is not entirely precise.

An examination of this table yields the following findings:

• In almost all of these competitions, the client and the organizer were one and the same. In some cases, the client also conducted the judging.
• In some competitions, the jurors were selected by the client from among university professors and administrative officials. In some, representatives of the client or board of directors served, and in only a few cases were professional architects and urban planners on the jury.
• In most competitions, prizes had been designated — though the amounts were negligible — and were paid, but the commitment to award the design contract to the first-place winner was not honored. In many cases, changes in management left the competitions unresolved.
• Clear information regarding the judging methodology and criteria has not been published.

In sum, an examination of the manner in which these competitions have been conducted reveals two critical shortcomings:

1. The absence of a systematic legal framework to guarantee the proper conduct of competitions and the fulfillment of declared commitments.

2. The absence of professional and technical oversight of architecture and urban design to guarantee the quality of competition organization.

Without doubt, the persistence of these two shortcomings — in addition to the non-realization of the primary goals of holding competitions — erodes the very motivation for participation.

Toward a Legal Framework

It is noteworthy that the draft regulations proposed by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, based on studies conducted by Dr. Iraj E'tesam and his colleagues and now being submitted for public comment, have been prepared. These studies, commissioned by the Organization for Management of Government and Public Buildings under the title “Organization and Management of Architecture Competitions for Public Buildings of Iran,” have been presented in five volumes:

• Phase One Report — Tir 1376 (July 1997), in two volumes: covering the experience of architecture competitions in Iran and other countries (Volume One), and the laws and regulations governing architecture competitions in Germany, Jordan, the United States, England, France, Canada, and Egypt (Volume Two).
• Phase Two Report — Shahrivar 1376 (September 1997), in one volume: a critique and analysis of fundamental questions regarding the factors and elements related to the concept and process of holding architecture competitions.
• Phase Three Report — Mehr 1376 (October 1997), in two volumes: the foundations for drafting regulations for holding architecture competitions in Iran (Volume One), and the proposed regulations for holding architecture competitions in Iran (Volume Two).

In addition to these regulations, a statement containing the fundamental principles of architecture and urban design competitions has been published — representing a synthesis of the views of six professional architecture and urban design organizations: the Engineering Organization of Tehran Province, the Iranian Association of Consulting Engineers, the Professional Association of Architect and Urban Planner Consulting Engineers, the Society of Architects at the University of Tehran, Memar Magazine, and the Journal of Architecture and Urban Design.

It is hoped that the publication of these documents will provide the necessary groundwork for taking the first serious steps toward systematizing the institution of architecture and urban design competitions in Iran.