THE HOUSE OF PEACE
THE HOUSE OF PEACE - PARIS 2024
There is war. A deadly war. In Ukraine.
What for ?
The madness of men… those men who think that having at their disposal the largest country in the world (in square miles) would entitle them to want more square miles and to call themselves “David” (as opposed to The “Goliath” of the West). The irony of ironies.
There is war. A deadly war. In Ukraine.
But not only in Ukraine, of course.
Humans cannot live without war. That is, without self-provoked death, although, those in charge are careful to send their own families to Switzerland and to hide themselves in ultrarich bunkers.
We ask you for a change… instead of investing in war, to invest in peace.
Next year Paris will host the next Olympics.
And we thus thought: during the Olympics great fighters fight for a medal, fight for a win, fight for a recognized level of excellence. In essence, they fight with their own limits, which they want to transcend.
The fight is often extreme… but at the end, these very competitors, who give everything they have in order to win, embrace each other very, very warmly, as if conflict was never an issue.
And this embrace, in fact, represents the highest victory.
To embrace one’s adversary. What could be more beautiful?
Let’s imagine the Russian soldiers embracing their Ukrainian counterparts, instead of killing each other and many, many other people.
Yes: KILLING, KILLING, KILLING.
“Homo Sapiens” killing “Homo Sapiens.”
We invite you to imagine THE HOUSE OF PEACE, to be built in Paris in 2024. The first House of Peace, built by a city hosting the Olympics. And four years later, Los Angeles, the next city to host the Olympics to do same, and so on… in time a constellation of Houses of Peace could be built on this ravished earth.
Life is difficult as it is.
Do we need to make it more difficult than necessary ?
LET’S BUILD A "HOUSE OF PEACE" IN PARIS, 2024!
LET’S DO IT AS A SIGN THAT THE WORLD WANTS TO CHANGE!
In order to have a common denominator besides the theme, we would like to invite you to submit works that would fit into an imaginary cube approximately 10m x 10m x 10m. But we invite you to make interventions within this cube as imaginatively and as freely and creatively as possible. In other words, the building does not have to be a cube at all, nor does it have to completely or perfectly fill the space within. The essential requirement is that you try to express PEACE as poetically and as ardently as possible.
How you do this, is entirely up to you. And so is the choice of a real place within the city of Paris where you would like to place your House of Peace. We are very much interested in building the best proposal, which will be chosen by a team of professionals and responsible officials in Paris, where we would like to send a portfolio with all the works received. Again, this is a work we would like to see built, as the beginning of a Peace Campaign, through the means of our own profession.
Please send your work on two posters, size A1, oriented vertically or horizontally, to info@icarch.us or info@icarch.org by November 12th, 2023. Please describe your work as eloquently as possible, so indeed with further study your work could be built. If you have any questions, please contact us.
Thank you,
I C A R C H
http://www.icarch.us
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THE HOUSE OF PEACE - RED SQUARE
MOSCOW
Hello.
Today it is St. Basil's Day.
We invite you to an ideas competition: to imagine A HOUSE OF PEACE in the Red Square, in Moscow.
In the plan above you can see St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow, an architectural monument of the greatest importance in Moscow (in the lower right corner).
You can place your HOUSE OF PEACE anywhere in the Red Square. It can have any dimensions, any architectural configuration.
You have complete freedom.
What is important is to propose a HOUSE OF PEACE so intensely creative, so evocative and provocative that the "residents" of the Kremlin, seeing this HOUSE OF PEACE every day, would radically change their "vision" about the "special mission" in Ukraine.
That is, propose a HOUSE OF PEACE that will force them to see, as in a faithful , unforgiving mirror, their huge mistakes, see their criminality, finally realize the dimensions of the tragedy they have caused.
HAVE THE COURAGE OF A MILITANT ARCHITECTURE!
DON'T LET YOUR IMAGINATION SLEEP, NOR YOUR SENSE OF JUSTICE!
FIGHT, THROUGH ARCHITECTURE!
This will be a one week long charrette. The deadline to receive your works is February 24, 2024, at 12 o'clock midnight (UTC time). Please present your ideas on an A1 board, oriented vertically, or horizontally. The mode of presentation is entirely up to you and it could be as minimal and poetic as Maya Lin's winning entry for the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, US. Please send your work digitally to info@icarch.us. We will publish all the works received on our website.
If we receive enough good works, we could make a portfolio and send it to Moscow for consideration. We could also send it to important architecture magazines and e-zines. We do believe it is architecture's role to try to better the world, especially under such grave circumstances as those of the present.
We will award two low budget prizes:
1st prize - 200 euro
2nd prize - 100 euro
We wish you success.
I C A R C H
www.icarch.us
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A(nother) HOUSE FOR ACHILLES
- The House of Peace -
Achilles was invulnerable… but, he did have his weakness: his heel.
And it was because of this weakness that he died.
He was a hero… protected by the gods, and not in the last, by his mother, who wanted him immortal.
Yet, he died.
Like all of us, one day…
But we forget… we forget that even the great Achilles had a weakness, his heel.
And we continue to wage wars, as if we learned nothing from the countless tragedies that the Earth was unable to avoid, often because of ourselves, we, the so-called “masters,” we the so-called “shepherds of existence.”
LET’S IMAGINE A(nother) HOUSE FOR ACHILLES, on the very island disputed, in deadly ways, by the Russians and the Ukrainians.
That very island where did exist, until the XIXth century when it was demolished to make room for a lighthouse, a temple dedicated to Achilles, who, it seems, was buried on this island.
Let’s use this occasion to envision, essentially, A HOUSE OF PEACE, since reflecting on our own vulnerability and mortality, could make us more reluctant to start useless, and deadly, wars.
We do not build temples any longer.
We are left alone on this earth, from which, thanks to us, again, the gods and God alike were banished.
Let’s reflect in the life of Achilles, in order to learn.
To learn what ?
To learn that in actuality no war is ever really won.
The wars are not won, they are lost, by “winners” and “losers” alike.
The Achilles’ heel should make us aware of our own “ankles.”
The “toxic masculinity” that Boris Johnson talked about should be diminished and even abolished.
Indeed, because of it unending dramas haunt the earth, to this very day.
Let’s imagine on The Serpents Island (or The Snakes Island - on The Black Sea) a building that will tell us not only of Achilles, but also, and more importantly, about our own mortality and vulnerability.
Make it a Temple to Peace, or a Temple to that “weakness” which the macho mentality refuses to acknowledge, but which is real.
THE TRUE POWER IS TO BE AWARE OF THIS “WEAKNESS.” And then, this “weakness,” Achilles’ heel, will become power, maybe the highest of all: Power over oneself.
Please send us your work on two sheets A1 by December 1st, 2022. Please send it digitally to info@icarch.us. Please register before the deadline. We will publish all works received on our website.If you have any questions, please contact us.
Thank you,
I C A R C H
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THE HOUSE OF AN UNDERSEA
VOLCANIC ERUPTION
A new island came into being… from an undersea volcanic eruption.
And just one kilometer away from Iwo Jimathe, the island where during the WWII terrible fights took place, which took the life of 22,000 Japanese troops and 7,000 Americans.
If we look at pictures of the coming into being of this new island, what do we see ? The drama of the undersea volcanic eruption, externalized above the waters of the ocean.
Couldn’t we interpret this turmoil of nature as some kind of metaphor for our own turmoil which continues to generate war and destruction?
Why do we kill each other ?
Isn’t it possible to live in peace in this world ?
We invite you to imagine THE HOUSE OF PEACE, on this very new island.
A new beginning… a new attempt to oppose to the tragedy of war a sign that not everybody believes in its inevitability.
And even if the chances of succeeding in our attempt are very slim indeed, maybe we should never stop trying.
A new island, emerging from the depths of the ocean… and on it, a house of peace.
Built by the very humans who cannot live in peace.
How would it be, this House of Peace ?
We don’t know… we are waiting for your proposals.
Should we just rest placidly, as if Ukraine and Gaza didn’t exist ?
We feel we have to act. And any gesture towards peace might not be completely futile.
DESIGN A HOUSE OF PEACE ON AN AS YET UNNAMED ISLAND.
Born from the sufferings of the undersea.
Born from our own sufferings.
A sign… on the ocean…
A sign that we are not going to give up.
A sign that we are still trying to oppose war.
A sign that we are not fatalistically indifferent.
Please send us ANY work, ANY size and ANY format that responds to the theme by March 22, 2024. Please send it digitally to info@icarch.us. If you have any questions please contact us. We will publish all the works received on our website.
Thank you,
I C A R C H
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I C A R C H
www.icarch.us
info@icarch.us