by Samantha Perry
Spring 2017 Intern
Taking inspiration from some of my
favorite stories and sci-fi movies, I often drew maps and made up my own worlds
when I was a kid. I remember sitting hunched over a large piece of paper
drawing a squiggly coastline of my dream island, that may or may not have
contained a river of lava somewhere in the middle. If ten-year-old me had heard
of Blank Space’s architectural competition, I would have jumped on the chance
to contribute some of my own renderings!
Blank Space is described on its
website as “an office for thought provocation, challenging architecture to
rethink its role in society by speaking about things we can all relate to.” Blank
Space hosts an annual Fairy
Tales competition, which prompts contestants to enter an original piece of
fiction (typically fantasy, fairy tale or sci-fi) and artwork to represent
their imagined world. Many submissions use creative architectural structures to
represent the theme of these new worlds, like these
past submissions. The accompanying piece of fiction goes along with the artwork
to detail the more subtle aspects of the submission.
Hosting one of the largest
architecture competitions in the world, the creators of the competition aim to
do many things, including challenge current architectural norms, create new
opportunities in the field of architecture and strike up a conversation with
society. So entries must be creative and outside the box to ensure a good look
from judges. The competition is open to anyone, and the panel of judges features
prominent architects, designers and writers.
I think what I like most about this
competition is seeing what the contestants decide to bring out in their
imagined worlds and how that speaks to the world we actually live in. The 2017
winner, Mykhailo Ponomarenko, for example, combines landscapes and sci-fi
architectural forms to comment on modern society’s relationship with nature.
His submission also includes the current mixed with the future, with people posing
for pictures in front of these futuristic landmarks. It’s cool to think about
these submissions as a glimpse into the future. Imagine living on an island in
the sky, equipped with roadways, malls and movie theaters!
Blank Space announces three winners
and ten honorable mentions each year with a celebration at the National
Building Museum in Washington, DC. Both the winners and the honorable mentions
are featured in the newest volume of Blank Space’s publication Fairy Tales: When Architecture Tells a Story,
but I think we can agree that we all win with this competition.
What kind of world would you design?
Did You Know?
The post at the top of the Empire
State Building was originally
meant as a place for dirigibles to dock. The plan was for passengers to disembark
and enter the building by an open-air gangplank (yikes!) and be on the ground
in just seven minutes!
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