Henning Larsen Foundation Announces 2020/21 Competition: Architecture and Utopia

The Henning Larsen Foundation is proud to announce the latest edition of its competition series this year an open international competition on the theme of Utopia in architecture. Previous competition editions have explored photographing architecture (2007), drawing architecture (2008), writing about architecture (2012), architecture and film (2015), and architecture and music (2017.)

The aim of the competition is to request ideas and images that can revitalize the utopia of architecture. 

The background of the competition is Henning Larsen's work as a curious architect. He sought new untried paths in architecture and sought inspirations far and wide. It could be in anonymous design and architecture, in structures of the past, and in the latest advances in science, as described in the attached text by architect Troels Troelsen, longtime collaborator at the design studio and chairman of the foundation. 

The competition calls for architectural, utopian visions.

Ideas that, with artistic and poetic power, can inspire a new dimension and a new quality in architecture are sought. The task: Describe in sketches and few words a Utopia, a dream or mood with descents in spatial, architectural particulars. Contributions are to be made in drawing / photo or any pictorial technique including short illuminating texts in either Danish or English (submissions in other languages will not be considered.) Analyses and theses are not asked for.

Entries must be submitted anonymously as a JPG or PDF sheets, max. 4 landscape-format A3 pages or 1 landscape-format A1 poster. Texts included in the sheets are limited to 1500 characters in total. File size is limited to 10mb.

During the judging, a name sheet with name, address, e-mail and telephone number) of the author (s) shall be attached to the proposal in a folder with a randomised six-digit number. The anonymization process will be handled by the competition secretary and will be inaccessible to the jury during the judging process. 

Previously published material will be rejected. Entries from relatives or partners to any of the jurors will not be accepted. 

The jury is comprised of Henrik Oxvig (cand mag. et mag. Art), Jytte Rex (artist), Kathrin Susanna Gimmel (architect), Ben Clement and Sebastian de la Cour (benandsebastian artists) and Troels Troelsen (architect).

Entries can be uploaded from mid-February 2021 until 9^th of April 2021 23:59 CET. The proposals will be subsequently exhibited at the Danish Architecture Center in BLOX- in Copenhagen.

The prize money of 14,000 Euros will be awarded to the best proposal or proposals, distributed at the discretion of the evaluation committee.

The Foundation reserves the right to display the proposals on the website one year after publication.