Marco Frascari Prize in Architecture 2023: Call for submissions
March 14, 2023
A drawing competition for graduate students
Submission Deadline: April 3, 2023
This drawing competition is open to graduate or post-graduate students who have completed at least one year of their program. The programs include Master of Architecture (two-year and three-year programs) Master of Architectural Studies, PhD in Architecture, and Graduate Diploma in Architectural Conservation.
The prize money amounts to $10,000 for first, second, and third places and honourable mentions. Awards will be announced on April 10.
The 2023 competition invites students to consider Marco Frascari’s essay (quoted below) and to speculate — through drawing — on the pursuit of “angelic standards.”
“…present “official” researches in architecture are an outcome of the search for an anthological knowledge, a gathering of data that contributes to make buildings safe and durable — but lacking the human quality of imagination. Seeing the imaginal dimension as the core of the profession, I present alternative research in architecture based on a theory of image in this paper. This theory, which stresses the role of demonstration in architectural production, is based on the merging of symbolic and instrumental images. The aim suggested for future architectural research is to produce information, new “angelic standards,” regarding the nature of architectural demonstrations. The images necessary for these demonstrations are in an amazing thesaurus, a meandered storehouse of monstrous, non-normative technological images that are played in architectural projects, but not properly declared.”
Source: A New Angel/Angle in Architectural Research: The Ideas of Demonstration, by Marco Frascari, Journal of Architectural Education (1984-) Vol. 44, No. 1 (Nov. 1990), pp. 11-19available through Macodrum Library (JSTOR)
Requirements
Recipients must demonstrate excellence in the practice of hand-drawing and a critical understanding of the craft and role of drawing in architecture. While hand-drawing must be a part of this demonstration, the submissions might include hybrid drawing (hand/digital), an area of architectural representation that defines the intellectual legacy of Marco Frascari.
Submissions must be on paper (format open) with a digital copy (300 dpi / jpeg).
Please send submissions to Professor Stephen Fai at stevefai@cunet.carleton.ca.
About the Marco Frascari Prize in Architecture
Dr. David Azrieli endowed the prize in 2013 in memory of Dr. Marco Frascari, who served as director of the Azrieli School of Architecture & Urbanism from 2005 until his death in 2013.