Submission: October 30, 2020
Registration: October 20, 2020
Language: English
Location: Concept
Prizes: Please see details below
Type: Open
The challenge for the participants is to design a Place of Faith that acts as a sanctuary for the secular world. The physical manifestation of this is open to interpretation. This competition is about making a space for that – a space for all, a space with no boundaries, a space with no aspiration of pleasing any one community, a space with no prejudices, a space of equality, a space for humanity, a space that could also be a place.
Religion plays a central role in our lives. In a lot of cultures, it has acted as a guiding factor for their socio-cultural systems of faith and worship. There are thousands of religions in the world which are all different from one another in some aspect or the other but what makes them similar is the presence of Architecture specially designed for religious expression. Sacral Architecture. Throughout history, we have seen Architecture being expressed most profoundly in religious spaces, and this has allowed them to become influential places in every society.
TOWARDS A CHANGE:
Religion today is mostly used as a tool for political gain in almost all the major nations, religious leaders sometimes taking on the role of cheerleaders for political ideologies, and this has pushed it towards an inevitable decline. Although the attraction to religion has decreased, people still believe in ‘values’ and ‘personal faith’. People across the world have developed highly individualized, institutionally unsupported ways of worship and sacred spaces are no longer exclusively in the realm of religion and have become much more secular in nature. This being said, we have still not yet identified a common place for faith and worship.
A PLACE OF FAITH:
The challenge for the participants is to design a Place of Faith that acts as a sanctuary for the secular world. The physical manifestation of this is open to interpretation. The program must be developed by the participants. In simplistic terms, the aim is imagining a space that is Sacrosanct. The people who come here will remain true to their own religion, continue to draw from its power, and engage in peaceable dialogue with one another and with members of the world’s secular population. Participants must choose a site where they expect maximum impact from the project.
This competition is about making a space for that – a space for all, a space with no boundaries, a space with no aspiration of pleasing any one community, a space with no prejudices, a space of equality, a space for humanity, a space that could also be a place.
