Cocktail Napkin Sketch Contest – 2011
Back for a second year and in my opinion, an new annual event is the Architecture Record Cocktail Napkin Sketch Contest. More than 1,200 entries from 400 entrants is a great showing for just the second year and this years winners are a definite step up from last years. Award winners are in two categories, professional architects and nonprofessionals (including students and designers). While I do feel that the designers need to be lumped into the professional category, I am sure many parts of the competition will be refined in years to come.
Here are the winners directly from the Architectural Record web page.
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Winner, Professional The prize for the best-in-show cocktail napkin sketch by a professional goes to Zeljko Toncic for his drawing of Antonio Gaudi’s Casa Milà, in Barcelona. The jury found it to be quirkily evocative of the 1910 landmark. Toncic, who has practiced for 33 years, says he has sketched the building before but this was the first time he dealt with the difficult medium of the cocktail napkin. “The paper is so soft and absorbs ink readily that maintaining control is tricky,” he notes. “I was trying to capture the essence of the structure without going into extreme detail.” |
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Winner, Non-professional The winning cocktail napkin sketch by a nonprofessional was drawn by Amanda Prosser, who received her M.Arch. from Kansas State University. With jobs in architecture so scarce, she currently works for a life insurance firm. The jury found Prosser’s sketch of Notre Dame du Haut, Le Corbusier’s famous chapel at Ronchamp, France (1954), to exhibit a startling economy and elegance of line. When Prosser visited Ronchamp as a student, she drew the building in a sketchbook with her eyes closed. “Back in Topeka, I decided to see if I could do it on a cocktail napkin with an extra-fine black ballpoint pen,” she says. “I did it again without opening my eyes.” |
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Runners-Up, Professional
Gregory L. Klosowski, Architect, Ellipsis A+D, Alameda, CA-pictured Hirotaka Hayakawa, Architect, Cooper, Robertson & Partners, New York, NY Tony Costello, Architect, Costello + Associates, Muncie, IN The jury awarded cocktail napkin sketches that reflect the spontaneous act of creativity underlyling this ephemeral art form. While a number of entrants treated the cocktail napkin sketch as an exercise in more time-consuming rendering, the jurors admired the artistry of these exercises and included several runners-up that belong to this category. |
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Runners-Up, Non-professional
Brodie Stephens, General Counsel, Perkins + Will, San Francisco, CA-pictured Kyle Reis, Planner, Cooper Carry, Atlanta, GA |
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Hors de Concour
Scott Grove, Creative Director, Smith + Associates, Rochester, NY-pictured
Contestants were asked to submit sketches on a 5-inch-square cocktail napkin, a stipulation that many blithely ignored. But Record’s jury stuck by the rules—with one exception: a tiny, delicate model of a church by Scott Grove (an artist) in which the cocktail napkin was made to act like balsa wood. Record created an “hors de concour” (out of the running) award. We couldn’t resist it.
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Off Beat
Carol Hsiung, Architect, FWFOWLE Architects, New York, NY-pictured John E. Quinton, Jr., Vice President, BRR Architecture, Merriam, KS Vlad Zadneprianski, Project Manager, TPG Architecture, New York, NY
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Ronchamp
Tanya Davis, Designer, Fennell Design, Rapid City, SD-pictured
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