It is very possible that between flowers and architecture, there is war. Yes, war. Architecture, by its very nature, even when conveniently declared as “sustainable” or “ecological,” is an aggression on nature, and very rarely it achieves that dreamt of harmony between Man and Nature.

Now, 150 years since the birth of the great architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh, we ask you to imagine THE HOUSE OF FLOWERS.

We are aware of the built-in contradiction. A house is a house, and flowers are flowers.

But what / how would THE HOUSE OF FLOWERS be like ?

Would it be a “hippie house ?”

Maybe… Flowers, peace and love do seem to somehow belong to the same field…

But why did Mackintosh renounce to build and why did he dedicate the last years of his life to painting, not just flowers, but also landscapes ?

Perhaps it was a good decision… after all, it seems these days we do have more buildings than flowers, and we do not speak here in exclusively symbolical or metaphorical terms.

To think of a flower, when building or imagining a building, means to almost think against architecture. But isn’t this the title of a book by Denis Hollier dedicated to the thoughts, and writings, of Georges Bataille ? 

It is. AGAINST ARCHITECTURE.

But how to build, or to imagine building, on such a premise ? Jungendstil did it, of course… Art Nouveau was “nouveau” exactly because it assumed the lyricism of flowers, or of Nature, in more general terms. But to speak of flowers, just as to speak about butterflies, means to speak about VULNERABILITY.

Yes, we invite you to explore the theme of Architecture and Vulnerability. So THE HOUSE OF FLOWERS would have that mirific vulnerability of flowers.

The House of Flowers… The House of Vulnerability… it seems, indeed, that we are contemplating an almost Non-House, no ?

Yes, this is what we do: we invite you to imagine The “Non-House" of Sensitivity… The “Non-House" of Ephemerality, the “Non-House" of Fragile Beauty, the “Non-House” of accepting the limits, of accepting the transitoriness of life… if Art is the flower, and Life is the leaf, as Mackintosh said, then, to put it simply, we ask you to design THE HOUSE OF ART.

Art, this most fragile of all entities, Art, without which, truly, life would be just a leaf… without flowers.

Could we imagine a life without flowers ?

Impossible.

To imagine it, it would mean to imagine DEATH.

Celebrate life, and fragility, through THE HOUSE OF FLOWERS, now that we reached 150 years since the great architect who also drew and painted flowers was born: Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

Please send us your work by December 10th, when there will be 90 years since Mackintosh died. Please register before the deadline to receive a registration number with which to anonymously identify your work.