Grand Egyptian Museum Dedication
Night view of museum to entrance
For many of us who got our first glimpse of world history in elementary school, the Egyptian pyramids were the symbol that we viewed as the start of it all. Decades have passed since then, but a fascination with that civilization has endured. Napoleon’s 1798 Battle of the Pyramids and defeat of the Malmuks in Egypt was captured in the famous painting by Antoine-Jean Gros. More importantly, Napoleon’s campaign was accompanied by a scientific expedition, marking the beginning of Egyptology.
Nepoleon’s Egyptian campaign by Antoine-Jean Gros (Wikipedia Commons)
Louve pyramid entrance by I.M. Pei. Photo: Stanley Collyer
Over a century and a half later, another Frenchman, President François Mitterand, commissioned architect I.M. Pei to design a modern version of that icon as a new entrance to the Louvre. With a dedication ceremony on November 1st, marking the completion of the Grand Egyptian Museum project, thereby combining the resources of several other museums in Cairo, it would seemed to have brought the saga surrounding these monuments full circle.
Image: Franz Neumayr/www.neumayr.cc/picturedesk.com/picture alliance
Starting with the launching of a U.I.A. open design competition in 2002, won by the Irish firm Heneghen Peng, the museum project faced several delays along the way, the most notable being caused by the Covid pandemic. Now completely open to the public, it marked the second successful competition administered by the Union of International Architects (U.I.A.) under the auspices of UNESCO in Egypt.
The 1989 competition for the modern Alexandria Library, the Biblioteca Alexandrina, was won by an unknown young team of architects, collaborating between a small Norwegian firm, Snøhetta, and team in Los Angeles, some of whom subsequently joined the firm in Norway. That project was completed in 2002 to international acclaim. These were not the only international competitions where the U.I.A. played an important role. Some of the most high-profile being the Sydney Opera House (1957-1973), Centre Pompidou, Paris (1971-1977), and Tokyo Forum (1989-1996). It should be noted that these competitions were completely open to competitors from around the world.
The Grand Egyptian Museum Competition
The competition was launched on January 7, 2002 at a press conference by Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosny. It was described as a two-stage, open, international competition with a stated mission: to identify a design that would also fit well within the context of Egyptian culture. The museum was to have a total area of 424,000m2. No budget was mentioned.
The site for the museum is unique, as it is a neighbor to the Giza Pyramids, and at its maximum height also reveals panoramic views not only of the pyramids, but also of the city of Cairo’s skyline. Although in the desert, the site is anything but level, but extends from 30 meters above sea level at the main entrance from the main highway to 68 meters at its apex.
After the announcement of the competition, there were over 6,000 visitors to the website and 2, 226 registered for the competition. From those, 1,557 entries from 83 were received. These were scrutinized by a technical team that screened the designs, and of these 1,321 were cleared for adjudication as valid submissions. Here one must note that 55 days were then reserved for the technical committee to reexamine every entry, “to read every single word, examine every drawing or sketch, and decipher every thought or concept presented by all architects.”
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The Finnish Museum of Architecture and Design Finalists and Winner
Finnish Museum of Architecture and Design competition site
Dating back to the 18th century, the history of architectural competitions in Finland has become an established process on the way to achieving exceptional design in its public realm. It became a model for other countries in the 20th century with projects by architects such as Aalvo Aalto and Eliel Saarinen receiving notice internationally. Concurrently, it was the elder Saarinen’s 2nd place winner in Chicago’s Tribune Tower competition that grabbed the attention of American’s architectural community in the late 1920s. As for process, Finland’s focus on a design selection process, based on anonymity, has survived to this day. It is the standard by which a shortlist for a second stage in the present Architecture and Design museum’s competition was reached.
Background
There are already existing architecture and design building museums in existence in Helsinki, even next door to each other; but there are serious limitations on space and current technical systems in both of those facilities. The new museum will not only solve the space issue, but offer room for three times the current staffing versus the numbers in the present museums. The cost of the new museum is pegged at €105M, most of which has already been set aside by the government. And millions in additional funding from private sources is also anticipated. According to the sponsor: “The museum will provide a cultural heart for the rapidly developing South Harbour area and a new, inviting urban space in Helsinki’s prime maritime location. It also represents a sustainable investment that will create jobs, generate commerce, and attract tourists to Helsinki.”
To administer the competition, the government turned to its own ADM real estate company to organize the competition. Not only were the priorities for the new museum to be addressed, a jury of experts was empaneled and compensation for the finalists was set. Upon the selection of a shortlist, the finalists were each to receive €50K for the submission of their design proposals in the Second Stage. Moreover, €150K in awards was made available for the final rankings of the participants. The Stage 2 of the competition commenced in February 2025 and ended in May 2025. The client did not stipulate materials usage; thus it could come as no surprise that wood was used extensively by many of the finalists (more about that later). Also, we noted that at least three of the finalists located the lecture hall on the top level of their designs, suggesting it was stipulated in the competition brief. One wonder if this takes into consideration the location of lecture halls in current museums and libraries, rather choosing to locate such facilities at grade, or even close outside the main building. Here the assumption resides that attendees to such lectures often regard their visit to be a simple in-and-out, since they may already be quite familiar with the museum. This also might allow lectures to take place after normal closing times with a separate path to the location.
A Final Word
How did COMPETITIONS get started? Whether from architects or chance encounters with laypersons, hardly a week would pass without being questioned about its origin. Actually, it was quite simple. While studying for another degree in Berlin, I became friends with two young architects, both not yet in their thirties, and at the age where European architects were frequent participants in competitions. They offered to take me along to exhibits of competition entries, even those where they had not submitted a design. Discussions always ensued, and, although I had always been interested in architecture, this was the real beginning of a crash course in the field. I learned from them that the best opportunity to climb the career ladder was to do well in a competition.
As it happened, friend Ivan Krusnic subsequently won a competition for sixteen middle schools in Berlin, and the other friend, Frederick Borck, turned out to be one of the primary experts in German hospital design. Furthermore, there was the opportunity to learn about the results of numerous competitions from excellent coverage by several of the publications covering those important projects.
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Berlin Philharmonie in 2019. New landscaping (left); interior concernt hall (right)
During my stay in Berlin, there had to be two competitions that still are firmly etched in my memory, the Philharmonie by Hans Scharoun and Tegel Airport by Manfried von Gerkan and Volkwin Marg (see p. 200). By coincidence, I bumped into von Gerkan on the way to his induction as an AIA Fellow at a convention in Atlanta in the 1990s. This turned out to be just one of many interesting encounters over the years with architects who had been successful in entering competitions.
Upon returning to the states after a 20-year hiatus and still in academia and the arts, I kept my ear to the ground concerning possible competitions here in the U.S. Although the Vietnam Memorial competition had everyone’s attention, a decision by the National Endowment for the Arts to support design competitions in the mid-1980s was a watershed moment. I began to contact nearby university architecture programs—Ball State University and University of Cincinnati—to measure their degree of interest in a possible publication. Both were supportable, and Cincinnati’s DAAP, and Nick Chaparos in particular, were responsible for the long-time logo and design of the initial issues of COMPETITIONS.
A phone call to Paul Spreiregen, Professional Adviser to the Vietnam Memorial competition, led to a chain of events that eventually resulted in the founding of a non-profit with the dissemination of information about design competitions as its primary mission. He mentioned that an expert on competitions lived in Louisville—Grady Clay, recently retired as Editor of Landscape Architecture magazine and the Chair of the Vietnam Memorial jury. Grady turned out to be a great supporter of the idea to extablish a non-profit entity to deal with this specific mission, and once The Competition Project became a reality, contintinued to be a major factor in spreading the word with the startup of the magazine, COMPETITIONS.
After the first issues of the magazine appeared, one always wonders how it has been received. Was it all worth the effort? One answer came early on, when Professor Jon Rush at the University of Michigan related the following story: “I received my first copy of your publication as a sample—thought it was terrific—sent in my subscription and, after reading it, sent COMPETITIONS to my son, David. In that issue, he noticed a competition sponsored by Sheet Metal Workers International Association and the American Institute of Architects titled, “The Next Age of Discovery.”
Winning entry in the 1991 “Next Age of Discovery” Competition, sponsored by the Sheet Metal Workers International Association and the American Institute of Architects.
©David Jon Rush
With a two-week deadline he entered the competition and won First Place for his design of a U.S. Pavilion using a photovoltaic skin. As a First Place winner, he received $3,000 and a trip to Expo ‘92. This led David to further expermental projects as a consultant to a leading manufacturer of photovotaics. With the Sheet Metal Workers Association International, he took part in expositions and conferences in this country as well as Canada and Mexico.” Here it should be noted that David Rush remained in New York, immedialy got a job in his field, and today is President of the successful Architecture and Interior Design firm at ETH’s New York office.
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This account was followed by stories from many architects who won open competitions, many at a relatively young age, which turned out to be a welcome boost to the careers of many. This was well documentated in a more recent collaborative online work by Jean-Pierre Chupin (Université de Montréal) andmyself—Young Architects in Competitions — When Competitions and a New Generation of Ideas Elevate Architectural Quality (Potential Architecture Books, Montreal, 2020).
Just to name a few, there were many at the very early stages of our evolution whose contributions to our success were essential: Charles Sappenfield (Ball State), Carlos Casuscelli (Ball State and Miami), Robert Probst (University of Cincinnati), Frimmel Smith (American Institute of Architects), and professional advisers and architects, Bill Liskamm, Roger Schluntz, Jeffrey Ollswang, and Bill McMinn, all of whom allowed my presence as an interested observer during their jury deliberations.
Among those who contributed to COMPETITIONS over the past decades, either as writers or leaders in the field, were Ray Gastil (Van Alan Institute), authors Will Morgan, Jayne Merkel, Michele Tilmont (Paris) and certainly Aaron Betsky. Here it would be remiss if I did not mention Thomas Hoffmann-Kuhnt of Wettbewerbe-Aktuell and Benjamin Hossbach of [phase eins], both of whom were influencial and helpful in their roles as publishers and facilatators of competitions in Germany and abroad. Hoffman-Kuhnt was founder and editor of the German publication, Wettwerbe-Aktuell, which not only featured the winners of competitions in Germany and Europe, but also the other awarded finalists. As a professional advisor of competitions, Hossbach and his firm administered many competitions, comprehensively documented in their publications, The Architecture of Competitions, as well as on their website.
I also must mention Helen Castle, former editor of AD (Architectural Design) in London, who shepherded my 2004 book— Competing Globally in Architecture Competitions—through a period of gestation to publication.
Although we now have experienced almost a complete lack of open competitions for real projects, both in this country and abroad as well—in favor of invited competitions—there is always that ray of hope that talents of young architects will again be recognized as essential contributors to the future of our environment and our quality of culture. -Ed
Important! – After the closing of our website on June 1, 2025, you will be able to access competitions.org for years to come for research purposes at Harvard GSD’s Loeb Library:
