Chapter 2On Competition Rhetoric and Contemporary Trends
Architectural competitions are about projecting and selecting the best solution among many parallel and competing proposals to a design problem. Rhetoric, then, in a wide sense, is essential because all levels of presentation involve purposeful and persuasive (or even argumentative) discourse in which the speaker (rhetor), here the author or designer, deliberately attempts to bring others round to his or her way of thinking.
There is a fundamental connection between the two arts, architecture and rhetoric. As Christine Smith points out, referring to Leon Battista Alberti: ‘since the purpose of architecture, as Alberti saw it, was like that of rhetoric […] to persuade ...
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