A leading architect has criticised the NSW government for its “distrust of real innovation” after his research exposed the low number of open competitions to come from the state over the past two decades.
The survey by Philip Thalis, a founding principal of Sydney-based firm Hill Thalis, reveals that there have only been 38 open competitions held by the state in the past 20 years, with only a few actually resulting in development.
By way of contrast, in Germany every public building has to be the subject of an open architectural competition.
The lack of open competitions shows a “distrust of real innovation”, Thalis told Architecture & Design.
“Public architecture in NSW has been in decline for the past 20 years,” Thalis said. Over that time, the NSW government has put prime cost and expediency of delivery ahead of quality, he said. “I think that’s an absolute cultural failing.”
“We’ve created a suite of delivery mechanisms that actively stymie quality; that actively stymie innovation. We need to rethink all of them. And I think the open competition is, in a sense, the pointy end of that discussion.”
Had the NSW government provided more open competitions over the past two decades, the city of Sydney would be “less stereotyped”. A competitive process that didn’t require any pre-qualification in terms of experience would champion the best idea, Thalis said.
“Even compared to Melbourne, and certainly compared to other leading world cities, our architecture is very constrained by norms.”
