Critique

"Architectural competitions have long been worldwide accepted as an excellent way to choose an architect, an architectural design or an idea for challenging issues or sites hopefully marking a period of time. Competitions represent a quest for excellence that all parties involved are willing to pursue: architects, clients and general public.
For architects, winning an architectural competition, is often seen as a recognition for one's competence in design and aesthetics values. Within the realm of architects the aesthetic values presented and valued in international competitions are seen as an insight in future architecture. Not only are architects expected to present a yet unseen architectural event - "yet another odd thing" - in competitions but also expected to follow or innovate "winning trends" or to decide, as juries, on the trends themselves.
The inner debate, the essential continual critique of ones judgement and ideas, the rhetoric and narrative an architect endures and synthesises while in competition, is perhaps the most perfect testimony of its own research process or method. History has repeatedly proven that relevant competitions may influence and forge architectural debate, evolution and its aesthetic values at both individual and worldwide level.
This investigation proposes to present some links between specific international iconic competitions and aesthetic values submitted within a frame of individual research which is only possible in the unique time and place of a competition process.
Examples shall be taken from several competition proposals submitted by Álvaro Siza Vieira and Eduardo Souto de Moura. These two Portuguese architects envision an ethos of Portuguese and European culture. This culture brings together influences from Africa, Brasil and India and reflects a practise of inclusiveness and of constant critique.
We will follow a mixed approach including a literature review of relevant architecture studies, an inventory of competitions, case studies and interviews to present an approach to aesthetic values inscribed in these international competitions and will propose some reflection upon its relevance both within national and international context."

"the content of this paper has been slightly reworked and published in this book: 
I. Lippert. Fragments of Environmental Management Studies. Der Andere Verlag, Tönning, Lübeck, Marburg, 2010.

http://uni-augsburg.academia.edu/IngmarLippert/Books/1128089/Fragments_of_Environmental_Management_Studies"

"In 2001, art critic and historian Benjamin Buchloh declared the ‘death of art criticism’ during the October journal’s roundtable, “The Present Conditions of Art Criticism.” The following decade witnessed a plethora of articles, conferences, and books devoted to the crisis of criticism–all efforts thus far seem to have failed, the crisis has not been abated. Art criticism is decaying and our historical moment is not only “post-modern” but also “post-critical.” At the same time, art writing has become such a broad spectrum of “literature” that neither author nor reader take it seriously¬–the writing is often ironic, filled with joyful and mediocre immediacy, and not to mention, a proud ahistoricism. We are also told, however, that this is a great moment for culture: writings on film, music, and art are to be found everywhere you turn or click. The Internet has allowed the democratization of cultural production: anyone can upload a film to YouTube or a track to MySpace–everyone has a voice, everyone has a blog, and everyone is a critic.

Under quickly changing conditions, then, what are the present tasks of aspiring art critics? This undertaking is multilayered but it must begin with an understanding the crisis of criticism in its contemporary and historical expressions. In the first two sections, the thesis surveys the symptoms of the illness: how art criticism has been unable to grasp the swift changes in the art world and how the curator, the dealer and the collector have replaced the critic as the main mediators between art and its public. The third section outlines how contemporary art criticism, largely anti-Greenbergian and anti-modern, suffers from “the flight from judgment.” In the fourth section, I explain how Art criticism was displaced with the emergence of art practices in the 1960s that thought to incorporate criticism into the work itself. All are important, and often contradictory considerations when seeking to understand the demise of art criticism, but all are not equally important for the task of resurrecting and redeeming criticism. The final and concluding section will dedicate itself to the future of criticism in light of its history. It will investigate and introduce possible paths for the reconstitution of art criticism, suggesting possibilities existing in the overlooked history of art criticism.
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