This poster was created by the British architect Charles Pigott +AI, as his response to the theme below.

   

   

THE RAW FESTIVAL

  

 

Hello.

Our world is still obsessed by riches and polished comfort.

Maybe all wars, ultimately, originate in this illusory quest for riches and luxury.

But life is tough, continues to be tough, for rich and poor alike, although their difficulties differ.

Read from right to left, the word "war" becomes "raw."

We invite you to submit architectural works (or strategies) that would qualify under the short title: RAW.

Even Zaha Hadid, the architect of so many highly polished buildings (despite the formal agitation), aspired towards a raw, even earthy architecture, as she once declared.

So let's imagine THE RAW FESTIVAL.

Let's bring together as many "raw" architectures as possible, let's create a digital archive with these works, accessible by anyone in this world.

We could thus create a constellation of architectural events, wherever such an event is desired (exhibition, presentation, etc)...

Maybe RAW would indeed be the opposite of WAR.

Or are we delusional ?

Thank you,

I C A R C H

www.icarch.us

Please send us ANY work, ANY size and ANY format that responds to the theme by June 1st, 2026. Please send your work digitally to: info@icarch.us and please register by May 15th through our website. If you have any questions, please contact us. We will publish all the works received on our website and we will also send a portfolio with the best works to Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu in China, to consider them for inclusion in the Venice Biennale next year.

 

 

 

   

THE HOUSE OF INDEPENDENCE

 

What is independence ?

Not being dependent ?

But is this possible ? Or even desirable ?

What about interdependence ?

Would interdependence be the opposite of independence ?

The dream of the alchemist was to unite the opposites.

But those longing for “independence” long for the uniqueness (they think) of their being…

Of course, the ideal is Multiplicity in Unity.

Independent, yet together.

But if the initial definition of art was Art = Bridge = God, then art doesn’t seem to advocate “independence”… yet, what about Le Salon des Independants ? They wanted to have no connection with the Beaux Arts system, “official” as it was.

Of course, the ideal, as always, is to be FREE.

But once this “freedom” was arrived at, what next ?

Wouldn’t we die of loneliness ?

Wouldn’t maybe be better, instead, to aspire towards being both Solitary and Solidary ? That is, Independent and simultaneously CONNECTED ?

“Only connect” said E. M. Forster.

But then connection could happen as a sum of independencies, no ?

But is that a true connection ?

What about love ?

Could one both be “independent” and in love ?

We are all interconnected, we want it, or not.

We invite you to reflect on INDEPENDENCE AND INTERCONNECTEDNESS.

We invite you to also think critically, that is not dogmatically and thus demagogically.

The present United States fought, 250 years ago, for “independence” from England… yet these very days The United States demands Great Britain to allow it to use its land as a base from where to launch its bombs towards Iran.

So, again, what is “independence” ?

Please choose a site within the territory of the United States where to place your House of Independence, on the occasion of its 250th anniversary. Please address the issue of “independence” in all its complexity and even contradictions and ambiguities.

BE TRUE TO THE THEME.

Celebrate (or not) INDEPENDENCE.

Connect, or not.

Please send your work digitally, to Info@icarch.us by July 4th, 2026, on two sheets format A1, oriented vertically. If you have any questions, please contact us. Please register through our website by June 15th, 2026. We will publish all the works received on our website and we will also organize a travelling exhibition.

Thank you.

I C A R C H

www.icarch.us

 

 

   

A HOUSE FOR ZAHA HADID

 

Maybe she didn’t need a house… inasmuch as the shoemaker does not seem to need shoes…

And maybe this is why it might be useful for us to imagine one.

But how to do it…? Would it be glamorous, like its “beneficiary…?”

Would it be high-fashion…?

Would it be flamboyant…?

Would it be opulent and polished and sleek and graphic…?

How would it be…?!

Or, quite the opposite, would it be modest, almost invisible, or visceral, tormented even, earthy and raw as at one point she wanted her own architecture to be…?!

No doubt though, it would the house of the most famous woman architect in the world.

By all standards she pushed the feminine presence at the frontline of architecture and it would be hard to replace her in the foreseeable future.

That very future she so much admired…

So, would A HOUSE FOR ZAHA HADID be “the house of the future…?”

What is “the future”…? And what if Faulkner was right that there is no “future…?!” That the past never dies, that it actually doesn’t even pass…?!?

And could “the future” exist in the absence of the continually ignored, PRESENT…?

What is the relationship between what a word like “the eternal” still conveys and what a word like “the ephemeral” mean…?

Was ZahaHadid an optimist…? Was she a pessimist…?

Her good friend Sir Norman Foster said that only an optimist could be an architect… that, in other words, from a position of pessimism it is almost impossible to build.

He was probably right, to an extent, although there is, for example, that admirer of Fernando Pessoa (not exactly the most optimist poet) – we are referring to Alvaro Siza – who built and builds… and there are the cynics, who, under the mask of cynicism hide maybe a deeply rooted pessimism… and then there was Louis Sullivan, who wrote both about Optimism and Pessimism…

Anyway… we do not know if ZahaHadid was an optimist, or a pessimist.

But we could still envision a house for her, that very house she didn’t envision herself… maybe a house increasingly approaching that level of florality (is there such a word…?) her architecture seemed to tend towards lately…? There were insinuations even of symmetry, somehow, in her later work… hidden, but discernible…

We leave you with question marks… maybe many… and with an open space on which to imagine A HOUSE FOR ZAHA HADID. Please send us your work by March 31st, when there will be, this year, ten years since she died. But did she die ?...

Please send it digitally to info@icarch.us on two sheets format A1. Please register by March 25th. If you have any questions please contact us. We will publish all the works received on our website and we will also organize a traveling exhibition.

Thank you,

I C A R C H

www.icarch.us

   

A HOUSE FOR GUSTAVE MOREAU

 

This year there are 200 years since the birth of Gustave Moreau.
Jean Cassou called him “the symbolist painter par excellence.”

Who would be “The symbolist architect par excellence ?” 

We banished symbol from architecture. Are there architects today who think of symbols, metaphors, allegories ?

But if Johann Huizinga was right that culture is culture only when it has a metaphysical goal and if Alvar Aalto was right when he said that "architecture belongs to culture, not to civilization,” then, as a necessary corollary architecture becomes architecture only when it has a metaphysical goal.

Metaphysical ?

How many architects, today, think of the metaphysical ?

But Moreau found inspiration in myth.

Myth ?

How many architects, today, think of myth ?

We invite you to imagine A HOUSE FOR GUSTAVE MOREAU, a “symbolist house par excellence.”

Could we conceive something like this ?

Perhaps it would be worth trying, especially at a time like ours, almost completely blind to values that are not pragmatic, not measurable, not “scientific,” not positivist, not "objectivist," etc…

Are we thinking of Oedipus, or the Sphinx, when we build ? We doubt it. Such arcane matters contemporary architects usually avoid.

But wouldn’t architecture perhaps benefit from them ?

It was said that there is melancholia in Moreau’s paintings… what about a Melancholic Architecture ? How would it be ?

A melancholic House for Gustave Moreau ?

Why not ?
When he became a professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, we read that his class “attracted the most progressive and adventurous students.” Beautiful…

We invite the most progressive and adventurous of you to imagine A HOUSE FOR GUSTAVE MOREAU that would bring back to architecture metaphysics, myth, allegory and symbol. As incisively and genuinely as possible. Maybe in this way we will rescue architecture from the banality of mercantilism and “civilization,” and bring it closer to what we call “culture.” And perhaps we shouldn’t forget melancholia as well, that is the deep intuition that "the here and now" is not enough. On the spiral of Time...

Please send us your work, digitally, on two sheets format A1, by April 6th 2026 (Moreau’s 200th birthday) to info@icarch.us. If you have any question please contact us. Please register by March 15th. We will display all the works received on our website and we also plan a traveling exhibition.

Thank you,

I C A R C H
www.icarch.us

  

   

      

A HOUSE FOR WANG SHU AND LU WENYU - 01

 

A man and a woman... two architects.

Two architects who named their practice, at a time obsessed by "professionalism". AMATEUR ARCHITECTURE.

Remarkable.

Nothing less.

Let's recall the etymology of the word "amateur"... it springs from the Latin verb "amare", which means TO LOVE.

LOVE... LOVE... let's remember now what Mozart said about genius:

"Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius."

Again, LOVE... LOVE...

How much love do the "professionals" often have ? Not much... they are efficient mercenaries, paid for services.

But "Amateur Architecture" seems to promote something else... the practice of architecture with joy and modesty... the very opposite of starchitecture.

So we invite you to imagine A HOUSE FOR WANG SHU AND LU WENYU a house that would embody their ideals, appropriately described on the site of the Biennale with these words :

"They maintain a sustained focus on existing materials, the traces of ordinary people's daily lives, the vitality of the unnamed, common structures, and the process and craftsmanship of artisans on the construction site. They advocate for a radical experimentation that is rooted in the local context and vernacular tradition. Their studio merges memory with innovation by combining recycled old building materials with modern engineering techniques, offering a powerful response to the social reality of urban development that involves large-scale demolition and construction. They have consistently upheld a broad global perspective, expressing through their works an innovative vision that transcends the cultural conflict between city and countryside, and the dichotomy of the artificial and the natural."

https://universes.art/en/venice-biennale/2027-architecture

We love the words: "the vitality of the unnamed." Maybe a house for them should be exactly about this: THE VITALITY OF THE UNNAMED.

What else can we say ?

Unnamed stars ? Those very stars Oscar Wilde said some of us look up to, while we are all in the gutter ?! The non-human stars ?

Do not forget the gutter, dear architect, the one that humbles us but also the one that acts, paradoxically, as a launching pad towards in our longing for the stars

A STAR IN THE GUTTER ? 

Design A HOUSE FOR WANG SHU & LU WENYU.

Design a house that unites the gutter with the star.

Please send your work on two sheets format A1 to info@icarch.us by May 1st, 2026. We will send a portfolio with all the works received to Wang Shu and Ly Wenyu, asking them to review the works and, if agreed by them, to incorporate them in the Venice Biennale next year. Please register by April 15th. If you have any question please contact us.

Thank you,

I C A R C H
www.icarch.us

 

   

      

A HOUSE FOR WANG SHU AND LU WENYU - 02

 

There is a totally unexpected statement by Le Corbusier, in his book Journey to the East:

"... there is nothing more lamentable than this mania of today to disown tradition for the sole purpose of creating the coveted "new"."

It is hard to believe, no ? Coming from Le Corbusier...

But if he placed the word "new" between quotation marks, maybe we could also place the word "old" between quotation marks...

Indeed, a certain "past" doesn't pass...

We ask you to create a house situated on the spiral of time... where "past", "present" and "future" are all simultaneously present...  THE HOUSE OF A TEMPORAL CONTINUUM.

A HOUSE THAT CONNECTS.

If E. M. Forster was right with his "Only connect!", quotation used by Vincent Scully in his article on Louis Kahn, then maybe A HOUSE FOR WANG SHU & LU WENYU would be a house that connects... connects on various levels.

But let us remember the oldest "definition" of Art, from Sanskrit:

ART = BRIDGE = GOD

BRIDGE

Design the House of Bridges.

The House that connects.

In a certain sense, THE HOUSE OF CIRCULARITY.

A HOUSE where nothing is lost... where things from the "past", either physical or metaphysical, exist in the "present" and will continue to do so in the "future."

But Baudelaire himself in his definition of art pointed in the same direction, when he said that art has two halves: one half that is eternal, immutable, permanent and another half that is transitory, circumstantial, ephemeral. 

We ask you to design A HOUSE that has BOTH halves.

THE HOUSE OF CONGRUENCE.

THE HOUSE OF CONTINUITY.

But not a placid continuity, since a break is also present. Tradition, yes, but also irritation. Irritate tradition! Don't just say "Yes." Have the courage to say "No" as well.

THE HOUSE THAT TURNS ITS BACK ON NOTHING.

THE HOUSE THAT UNITES THE CONTRARIES.

THE HOUSE THAT CORRELATES.

A HOUSE FOR WANG SHU & LU WENYU.

MULTIPLICITY IN UNITY.

RRR + I = Reduce, Reuse, Recycle + Innovation

We invite you to do nothing else: find a real site in a specific context, find a site on this earth that needs resuscitation. Become a resuscitator. Rescue what you find there, losing nothing, or very little. TRANSFORM. Metamorphosize. Build now, erase nothing. Don't erase. Don't bring in the bulldozer. Instead, be a shaman, cure with great care and inventiveness!

The world needs you.

Please send your work on two sheets format A1 to info@icarch.us by May 1st, 2026. We will send a portfolio with all the works received to Wang Shu and Ly Wenyu, asking them to review the works and, if agreed by them, to incorporate them in the Venice Biennale next year. Please register by April 15th. If you have any question please contact us.

Thank you,

I C A R C H
www.icarch.us