Jazz is an intriguing cultural phenomenon in the world of music. Despite being often relegated to a genre of music, Jazz has throughout its history, challenged any attempts to bind it down to a definition. From its roots in African-American communities of America at the turn of the 20th century, it has constantly evolved, expanded, changed, and has passed through various distinctive phases of development. Often defined as being improvisational, Jazz disproves this stereotype by ‘swinging’ between, being neither entirely composed nor entirely extemporized. Yet, despite its constant metamorphosis and hard to pin down definition, Jazz has the quaint quality of being instantly recognized.
What about jazz music that strives to break free from definition makes it so easy to pick out? Can we as designers harness these qualities to imagine a home for this eclectic genre of music?
Denied the freedom to play the music that came from their homes, the slaves in America adapted their music preserving it partially and creating a new genre of music – Jazz. Between 1905 to 1915, denied employment and opportunities, African-American musicians took to Jazz since it could be at least played in honky-tonks, bordellos, and clubs, and thus emerged the performative origins of Jazz.
Today, Jazz is often deemed a musical genre that is reserved for the more seasoned connoisseurs of music, but the reality of the music is far from conservative and more closer to the ground than we know. Quite simply put, Jazz is a free-spirited form of music that despite its changing forms and tones is undeniably felt. So can we as designers draw inspiration from this eclectic musical culture that continues to change, and design a performative space for it?
UNI, an International architectural design competition platform is seeking inspiring concepts that draw inspiration from Jazz’s history and nature to design a performance space for Jazz music and musicians. Participants are free to draw inspiration from the images of the spaces that the music originated from and was performed in but attempt to integrate it with the ever-changing nature of the musical genre. The aim of this competition is to push oneself to design spaces in a specific theme.
Entries will be reviewed by a panel of esteemed professionals from the field of architecture which includes Dr Piers Taylor (Architect, Principal- Invisible Studio, Australia), Paul Laurendeau (Architect- Atelier Paul Laurendeau, Canada) and Laurent Gravier (Architect – Founding Partner – FRES ARCHITECTES, France) along with other experts at UNI.
A prize pool of 24000 USD is to be won!
For complete information on active prizes and details regarding the entry fee, please visit the Awards & Fees section of the competition.
Learn more about this competition here.
UNI brings together the world’s largest pool of design challenges that are curated by the finest architecture academicians and professionals globally. With over 200,000+ registered members, UNI ties the academia and professional spheres of architecture together through a unique knowledge sharing web platform.
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