A HOUSE FOR HITLER

Tyrants are usually very interested in architecture. Indeed, what could better epitomize their unending quest / thirst for power than architecture (besides military might)…?

But more than this, Hitler actually wanted to become an architect, at some point… and his association with Albert Speer was very close.

On the occasion of the opening of an important exhibition in Berlin titled “Hitler and the Germans – Nation and Crime” we invite you to reflect on this man, through architecture.

Try to design a house for him.

How would it be…?

Would it be an immense white palace, supported by Greek columns…?!?

Would it be a gas chamber…?

Would it be a libidinal place in which the Fuhrer would discharge his sensuality (in probable George Grosz –like “scenarios”)…?

Would it be a military bunker…?

Would it be a Pyramid…?!?

Would it be a gutter…?!?

Would it be a slaughter house…?!?

How would it be…?!?

Please be as irreverent and as malicious as Moliere was when he depicted the stingy man, or the hypochondriac.

There is no reason why architecture should abstain from implicitly and explicitly criticize the subject matter of its métier (its client).

Maybe it is high time to do just this.

If Goya represented his illustrious subjects with irreverence, maybe we can do the same, in architecture.

Imagine Hitler commissioned you to design a house for him, post mortem, that is, AFTER we know what he was all about.

Design A House for Hitler, at the time when, strangely, a sensitive singer like Leonard Cohen sang:

“Bring me back the Berlin Wall

Bring me Stalin and St. Paul”

Did we hear correctly…?????????????

Please send us ANY work, ANY size and ANY format that responds to the theme to info@icarch.us. We will publish all the works received on our website, www.icarch.us. There is an entry fee of 30E (15E for students) payable by PayPal through the registration section of our website. The registration deadline is December 15th, 2010. The submission deadline is January 15th, 2011.

Thank you,

ICARCH Gallery