A historical platform available online offers a look at the last one hundred years of architectural competitions in Uruguay, exploring the shape of the city its society set out to imagine.
100 Years of Architecture Competitions in Uruguay is a project created by authors Virginia Delgado, Francisco Magnone, and Marcelo Staricco (architects and design instructors, DEAPA - FADU, UdelaR) along with research advisor Mag. Arch. Diego Capandeguy.
While the design competition is a mechanism with over 500 years of history, it remains to this day—despite its imperfections—the most developed and democratic model for producing architecture, both in terms of commissioning projects and the guarantees provided by the decision of a qualified jury.
Over the last 100 years—a period that could be called Uruguay's modern era—architectural competitions and their resulting projects have shaped the city and the model of the country that our society set out to imagine. Many of these competitions were organized to build works, to attempt to build them, or even to avoid doing so. They have generated a built heritage, but also an immense unbuilt heritage; fundamentally, however, they have all fostered a space for disciplinary innovation. Even those destined to fail introduce topics and spark debates that usually extend beyond professional journals, finding natural expression in opinion pieces and letters to the editor.
This project offers an overview of the architectural competitions held in Uruguay over the last 100 years, presented through a data landscape designed to serve as both an open platform and a primary database to encourage future research on the subject.
Access the platform here.
* Text courtesy of Francisco Magnone, Marcelo Staricco, and Virginia Delgado
This article was written by Fabian Dejtiar. The translation is powered by AI.
