2015 Architectural League Prize Is Accepting Submissions for Authenticity Competition

Budding architects and designers have the chance to submit proposals that cultivate new positions of authenticity within architecture, the task of this year’s Architectural League Prize Competition, according to Arch Daily. Since 1981, this contest has been put on by the Young Architects + Designers Committee to recognize young practitioners.

Authenticity has a very different meaning in today’s digital world than it did in ancient Greece, for example, where the only two forms of copying were stamping and casting. Thus, the 2015 Authenticity competition asks participants to explore “how design, technology, and practice challenge authenticity and the ways that originality, expression, and authorship continue to be pursued.”

Proposals can be theoretical or real and executed in any medium. The Architectural League of New York recognizes that today there is no longer a stable dichotomy of authenticity, thanks to unending modes of appropriating, hacking, and copying. Additionally, cross-disciplinary projects blur the lines of original authorship. The contest proposals should “see authenticity as a pursuit rather than a form of validation or an essential quality.” They might “re-examine authenticity through form, design, substance, function, context, or any other means that continue to direct and transform [one’s] practice.”

Not only will winners receive a cash prize of $1,000, but they’ll also present their work in lectures, digital media, and an exhibition in June 2015 and be published in a catalogue by the Architectural League and Princeton Architectural Press. The 2015 jury is made up of Keller Easterling, Sanford Kwinter, Michael Meredith, and Billie Tsien, and the deadline to submit proposals is February 17. Learn how to apply and see if you’re eligible, here.

[Via Arch Daily]