Jury Decision

The Great Pyramid Competition Jury on January 22, 2008 in Milan. From left: Omar Akbar, Stefano Boeri, Rem Koolhaas, Ingo Niermann and Miuccia Prada.

The Jury of the Great Pyramid competition spent a long afternoon studying proposals. They were impressed, not only by the caliber of the individual entries work but even more by the way the architects work was a further reinforcement of the value of Umbauland’s initial hypothesis.

Niermann’s story addressed the poverty and confusion of our current attitudes to death but also tantalizingly suggested that at a specific zone on a specific German location in a specific moment in history, could be dedicated to a monumental effort to find a new way to do justice to both the dead and the living. In other words he accepted political implications of his work and asked architects to keep develop it.

The projects each contribute important elements to reinforce Niermann’s initial hypothesis. They differ not so much in architectural language, but in difference of methodology and the exploration of very complementary aspects.

Fake contributed significant thinking on the construction of the pyramid and the way memory could “work.” Also they suggested a language both plausible and profound in which the entire complex could be advertised or even branded independent of any design.

Bow-Wow’s project establishes a new poetic way to relate life and death. The pyramid becomes the center of a meditation ‘village’, where both individual memory and the massive presence of death are balanced across a delicate landscape of ritual.

Hirsch, Lorch & Miessen demonstrate the feasibility of the pyramid’s original thesis by extracting from our current daily life the elements dedicated not only to death, but also to the vast industries that surround it and reassembling them in a programmatic organization surrounding a lake and in the center a pyramid-lite, that removes some of the dead weight associated with the form.

MADA’s project explores a space far beyond Niermann’s initial model by suggesting for the first time in 3000 years, to explore the pyramids inside, in a hallucinatory journey across the Elbe that ends eventually in a reintegration in the landscape.

The 3 first projects each contain elements susceptible to play a role in the eventual implementation of the pyramid and produce ammunition for a campaign. In the end the variety and richness of the entries kept the jury from declaring a single winner – given the enormity of the enterprise, there is scope for each author to contribute and enrich the massive effort.

Rem Koolhaas
President of the Jury