Beyond the success and failure of the Athens D.O.E.S. 2002 cultural olympiad competition

On the occasion of the Athens 2004 Olympics the Hellenic Ministry of Culture supported the launching of an open international architecture competition on Ephemeral Structures in the City of Athens (Athens D.O.E.S.) under the auspices of the International Union of Architects (UIA). The competition was organized in the context of the Cultural Olympiad’s programme for architecture and approached the contemporary Athenian cityscape as a site for experimentation by considering it to be both the site of practice and the site of thought. The competition brief provided architects an opportunity to invent ‘fields of forces’ whose impact would offer the inhabitants an opportunity to re-orient their perception of Athens. Structured into two parts, an ideas category for the students and a professional category for architects, the competition attracted 1279 registrations, 466 submissions from 54 countries and 34 prizes were awarded. 60 professionals were involved in the various stages, as members of the jury, authors of the brief, exhibitions designers etc., and backed the aspirations of their client, i.e., the 21st Greek State’s wish to challenge the prevailing 19th century perception of Athens. Nevertheless, the commissioning of the competition projects stumbled on the local construction industry that resisted any idea of research and innovation in architecture. The paper reframes the Athens 2004 competition in the context of the current financial crisis to discuss the potential of introducing Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory to think competition briefs that can be designed and implemented by an assemblage of clients, architects, emerging technologies and common usage.