A Failure of Vision

Drama, talent, prestige. International competitions have become a mainstay of the contemporary architectural scene. In Europe, they have launched the careers of a myriad of budding talents. In America, a cynic might say, competitions are mostly used by a small cultural elite to give their institutions an air of international sophistication.

Whatever the motive, the results often fail to measure up to expectations. Many competitions fail to produce even one innovative design and the best design often loses anyway. Even the most touted competition program of the past several decades, Francois Mitterand’s Grand Travaux in Paris, only managed to create one or two projects of architectural merit and a half dozen mediocrities.

Why do so many competitions fall short?

In part, the answer is ignorance. More often than not, selection committees are made up of a combination of institutional bureaucrats with little experience in evaluating architecture and board members who are there only because of the size of their wallets. But to an equal degree, it is because what many label a competition is often no such thing. Unwilling to risk a genuinely open process, institutions opt for a hybrid system in which a small group of architects is selected in advance and then invited to compete for the final prize.

A case in point is the recent competition sponsored by the federal government’s General Services Administration for the design of a $300-million federal courthouse in downtown L.A.--a perfect template for how to guarantee second-rate design. After a nine-month selection process that whittled a list of 23 architects to one, the GSA selected a design by the Chicago-based Perkins & Will, a conventional corporate firm that has never created an important work of architecture. The design is a model of mediocrity. But it is not so much that the Perkins & Will design is unexceptional. It is that such an enormous amount of energy went into making it so.

In the beginning, there was reason for hope. The courthouse competition was part of a broader federal program launched in 1990 by the GSA to raise the level of design in government buildings. And by most accounts, the program has had a high degree of success. It was responsible for the creation of the celebrated Richard Meier-designed courthouse in Islip, N.Y., completed last fall. More recently, the program was influential in the selection of the Los Angeles-based Thom Mayne to design a courthouse in Eugene, Ore. Mayne is considered a rising star among contemporary architects, his designs powerful evocations of social instability.

Civic leaders have singled out the Los Angeles courthouse as a work of particular significance because of its place in the city’s downtown fabric. They liken it to Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall and Rafael Moneo’s Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral--both under construction several blocks away.

But early on, things began to sour. In August, when a standard request for proposals was sent out, the returns were so uninspiring that officials sent out a second one two months later, this time taking care to advertise the project in the architectural trades.

Nonetheless, of the 23 respondents, only a few could be considered designers of the first rank. The majority were conventional corporate firms. Among the missing: Mayne, the architect of the Eugene courthouse, and Gehry, Los Angeles’ most venerated architect. Mayne now regrets the decision not to compete, claiming that at the time he was convinced that with three major GSA commissions under his belt, he was unlikely to land a fourth. Gehry’s global success, meanwhile, means that he rarely takes part in competitions of any sort anymore.

The result was an initial list that lacked imaginative spark. It included two architects, Richard Meier and Rafael Vinoly, capable of producing first-rate designs. But the rest of the firms were mostly notable for their formulaic work. To the most bottom line-obsessed clients, firms like Skidmore Owings & Merrill and Zimmer Gunsul Frasca represent the safe path. In effect, their lack of creative imagination is not a sin--it is a selling point.

The question GSA officials might have asked themselves, however, was why continue with the pretense of a competition at all? The advantage of a competition is that--by tossing a high level of talent into an atmosphere of creative freedom--you increase the possibility of inventing something of lasting cultural value, maybe even producing a work of art.

Without establishing such high standards, however, the process becomes meaningless. Why make architects jump through hoops in order to create the kind of design that any reputable firm can pull off?

It was a point GSA officials seemed to miss. In November, a panel of regional GSA officials and Los Angeles Judge Matthew Burns convened in San Francisco to whittle the list to eight. Along with Meier and Vinoly, they chose Skidmore Owings & Merrill, Cannon Dworsky, Perkins & Will, Kohn Pederson Fox, Zimmer Gunsul Frasca and Steven Ehrlich Architects.

A few months later, the architects flew to San Francisco for a series of formal interviews. Meier, in particular, foresaw problems. The GSA had decided to use a design-build construction process for the Los Angeles courthouse--meaning that the architect would produce a design, but a local contractor would be responsible for the building’s structural details. During his interview, Meier insisted that such a process would severely compromise a design. He was eventually dropped from the list.

It was only then, with the list down to four teams--Vinoly, Skidmore Owings & Merrill, Cannon Dworsky and Perkins & Will--that the GSA brought in a panel of experts to help with the selection process.

The panel, which included Mayne, critic Joseph Giovannini and architect William Pederson, was impressive. It was also irrelevant. Of the four proposals the panel received, none was of architectural interest.

Vinoly--generally considered the one true talent on the list--produced perhaps the worst design--a curved building covered by a louvered canopy that has no decipherable connection to its context. Skidmore Owings & Merrill’s design--a row of barrel-like forms encased in glass--is a shameless rip-off of the British architect Richard Rogers’ recent design for a courthouse building in Bordeaux, France.

The winner, meanwhile, suffers from having aspirations it cannot meet. Its enormous, curved wall of glass is obviously meant as an impressive architectural statement, but it doesn’t meet even the simplest functional requirements. Facing the scorching southern light, it promises to roast the judges, juries, lawyers and clients inside. The outdoor plaza, despite a few decorative flourishes, is a bland, useless space.

Who is to blame? The clients, of course. The GSA’s muddled process effectively ensured that it would never get the one thing a well-planned competition is meant to secure: ideas.

So here are a few observations on how to run a competition, with the GSA and the city’s future in mind:

*Load the list with talent and see who comes out on top. Great architects can often produce mediocre buildings. Mediocre architects rarely produce great ones.

*Let the creative imagination run amok. Don’t begin by handcuffing architects to volumes of banal restrictions and guidelines. The essence of a competition is risk. The result may be the kernel of an idea, a fantasy that needs to be reined in. Rein it in later.

*Intelligence. An elusive, hard-to-define commodity. But the reality is that some people are better equipped to make certain decisions than others. Selection committees should be made up of people with the ability and skill to identify a first-rate design when they see it. Nor should they be relegated to a meaningless, secondary role.

*Loud, passionate debate. Making architecture--and the design of cities--should become a public process. But, given the large sums of money and ego involved, it largely takes place behind closed doors. For decades, architects have been trying to get into those rooms. How about throwing open the doors? The real battle should be between the experts and the public, not bureaucrats and other bureaucrats.

*Have the guts to pick the best design.

I admit it’s a wish list. To accomplish it, bureaucrats and their ilk would have to willingly turn over much of their power to those best able to make critical judgments--an unlikely occurrence. What is more, following such guidelines demands a more open, democratic process, one in which ordinary citizens are allowed to cheer or throw tomatoes. Once that happens, it would mean allowing those who know best to step in and make the best decision. That would mean resolving a fundamental paradox of any democracy: How do you uphold a meritocracy in the context of a democratic society?

But it is possible that some of these ideas could one day filter into the public consciousness. Once we, as a culture, become more educated about the built environment, we might become less fearful, less rigid in our thinking. Think of it as a process, not a formula. After all, no competition--no matter how well publicized--can make up for lack of vision and nerve.