Archiving 100 Years of the Van Alen Institute

I have started a side gig at the Van Alen Institute trying to make sense of over 100 years of student design competitions. I am doing this to feed my obsessive romanticism with the non-profit and philanthropic as it pertains to the design world. It seems safer and cheaper than a meth addiction. And as suspected, the experience thus far has only solidified my theory that non-profit is the sweet spot. In the United States, it can comfortably occupy the realm in between the theoretically overburdened constraints of the academy and the idea limiting affects of consumer driven design and it's power to privatize.

The Van Alen Institute began in 1894 as the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects when students upon returning from the Ecole were finding the American Academies insufficient in their instruction of the Beaux-Arts methods. The Society was originally composed of hundreds of smaller ateliers around the nation where practicing architects would give instruction to students at night. The overarching organization would then conduct ongoing competitions divided into Order, Class and Eqsuisse Problems, replicating the system of the Ecole. Of course this created tension with the universities at the time, namely Columbia because their instruction was being undermined.

Over time it morphed into the National Institute for Architectural Education and continued the previous mission, slowly abandoning the Beaux-Arts as new national influences arose, but continuing to award extensive travel and monetary scholarships. Perhaps over 1000 total.

In 1995, the organization decided to focus on the public realm, and to act as a catalyst and advocate for issues of public space, named after the architect of the Chrysler Building, William Van Alen.

The VAI currently has 2 storage facilities, one on Long Island and one in Queens, full of said competition entries. My job is to produce some type of historical narrative and/or documentation. It is the greatest history lesson to sift through these entries beginning at a time when there was no higher skill than what could be produced through intricate and disciplined drawing methods and before the advent of Modernism.