Competition Lead Sponsor | Vít Jedlička, The President of Liberland

Launch Date |  October 5, 2015, during the opening week of the inaugural Chicago Architectural Biennial.

Competition Jury | The full Design will be announced on October 15, 2015.

Competition Designer | Daniela Ghertovici, Director of ArchAgenda LLC

Entry Qualifications | Open to all Architects (licensed and unlicensed), Urbanists, Interior  Designers, Architecture and Design  Students. Team and individual entries are welcome, only one entry fee per team.

Deadlines and Questions |  See schedule details below. Contact Organizer on this website with questions.

Design Awards |  Merits are Liberland’s new currency, equivalent to US Dollars. All prizes will be awarded in Merits. Note that Liberland citizenship costs 10,000 Merits (the equivalent of 10,000 US dollars), which can either be earned by working or obtained by donating to Liberland; prize winners can choose to apply the Merits they win towards Liberland citizenship, or to collect the Merits in cash.

First Place            10,000 Merits

Second Place     9,000 Merits

Third Place          8,000 Merits

Fourth Place       5,000 Merits

Fifth Place           4,000 Merits

Registration Fee |  Professionals $60, Students with current ID $30

Documents Available on Wiki Liberland (FB Site) |  Site plan, environmental data, program parameters 

>>>Liberty

 “The argument for liberty is not an argument against organization, which is one of the most powerful tools human reason can employ, but an argument against all exclusive, privileged, monopolistic organization, against the use of coercion to prevent others from doing better.” [6]

>>>Society
 “I define anarchist society as one where there is no legal possibility for coercive aggression against the person or property of any individual.” [7] 

>>>Capitalism
 “Capitalism is the fullest expression of anarchism, and anarchism is the fullest expression of capitalism. Not only are they compatible, but you can't really have one without the other. True anarchism will be capitalism, and true capitalism will be anarchism.” [8] 

>>>The state

“Briefly, the State is that organization in society which attempts to maintain a monopoly of the use of force and violence in a given territorial area; in particular, it is the only organization in society that obtains its revenue not by voluntary contribution or payment for services rendered but by coercion.” [9]

>>>Secession

 “Once one concedes that a single world government is not necessary, then where does one logically stop at the permissibility of separate states? If Canada and the United States can be separate nations without being denounced as in a state of impermissible ‘anarchy’, why may not the South secede from the United States? New York State from the Union? New York City from the state? Why may not Manhattan secede? Each neighbourhood? Each block? Each house? Each person?” [10] 

>>>Values and moral principles

Libertarianism does not offer a way of life; it offers liberty, so that each person is free to adopt and act upon his own values and moral principles. Libertarians agree with Lord Acton that "liberty is the highest political end" — not necessarily the highest end on everyone's personal scale of values.” [11]

>>>What is society?

 “The libertarian, however, is an individualist; he believes that one of the prime errors in social theory is to treat “society” as if it were an actually existing entity. “Society” is sometimes treated as a superior or quasi-divine figure with overriding “rights” of its own; at other times as an existing evil which can be blamed for all the ills of the world. The individualist holds that only individuals exist, think, feel, choose, and act; and that “society” is not a living entity but simply a label for a set of interacting individuals. Treating society as a thing that chooses and acts, then, serves to obscure the real forces at work.” [12]

>>>Ideology
 “For this essential acceptance, the majority must be persuaded by ideology that their government is good, wise and, at least, inevitable, and certainly better than other conceivable alternatives. Promoting this ideology among the people is the vital social task of the “intellectuals.” [13]

>>>Public utilities

 “The very term ‘public utility’ … is an absurd one. Every good is useful ‘to the public,’ and almost every good … may be considered ‘necessary.’ Any designation of a few industries as ‘public utilities’ is completely arbitrary and unjustified.” [14]

>>> Exchange
“Exchange is the lifeblood, not only of our economy, but of civilization itself.” [15]

>>>Free Market
“Many people believe that the free market, despite some admitted advantages, is a picture of disorder and chaos. Nothing is “planned,” everything is haphazard. Government dictation, on the other hand, seems simple and orderly; decrees are handed down and they are obeyed.” [16]

>>>Monetary System
“In sum, freedom can run a monetary system as superbly as it runs the rest of the economy. Contrary to many writers, there is nothing special about money that requires extensive governmental dictation. Here, too, free men will best and most smoothly supply all their economic wants. For money as for all other activities of man, “liberty is the mother, not the daughter, of order.” [17]

>>>Voluntary Cooperation

 “It is true that the virtues which are less esteemed and practiced now--independence, self-reliance, and the willingness to bear risks, the readiness to back one's own conviction against a majority, and the willingness to voluntary cooperation with one's neighbors--are essentially those on which the of an individualist society rests. Collectivism has nothing to put in their place, and in so far as it already has destroyed then it has left a void filled by nothing but the demand for obedience and the compulsion of the individual to what is collectively decided to be good.” [18]

>>>Unleashing market/societal forces

 “Our faith in freedom does not rest on the foreseeable results in particular circumstances but on the belief that it will, on balance, release more forces for the good than for the bad.” [19]

>>>Freedom to order
“Freedom to order our own conduct in the sphere where material circumstances force a choice upon us, and responsibility for the arrangement of our own life according to our own conscience, is the air in which alone moral sense grows and in which moral values are daily recreated in the free decision of the individual. Responsibility, not to a superior, but to one's own conscience, the awareness of a duty not exacted by compulsion, the necessity to decide which of the things one values are to be sacrificed to others, and to bear the consequences of one's own decision, are the very essence of any morals which deserve the name.” [20]

>>> Design

 “The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.” [21]

>>>Emergence

“It is because every individual knows little and, in particular, because we rarely know which of us knows best that we trust the independent and competitive efforts of many to induce the emergence of what we shall want when we see it.” [22]

>>>Totalitarian vs. Free countries

“The chief difference [between totalitarian and free countries] is that only the totalitarians appear clearly to know how they want to achieve that result, while the free world has only its past achievements to show, being by its very nature unable to offer any detailed "plan" for further growth.” [23]

>>>Building a free society: intellectual adventure and deed of courage
“We must make the building of a free society once more an intellectual adventure, a deed of courage.... Unless we can make the philosophic foundations of a free society once more a living intellectual issue, and its implementation a task which challenges the ingenuity and imagination of our liveliest minds, the prospects of freedom are indeed dark. But if we can regain that belief in the power of ideas which was the mark of liberalism at its best, the battle is not lost.” [24].

>>>Private property
“If history could teach us anything, it would be that private property is inextricably linked with civilization.” [25]

>>>Civilization
“Human civilization is not something achieved against nature; it is rather the outcome of the working of the innate qualities of man.” [26]

 _____________________________

[6] Hayek, Friedrich A. Von
[7]  Rothbard, Murray N. 
[8]  Rothbard, Murray N. 
[9]  Rothbard, Murray N. "Anatomy of the State." Mises Institute. 2009. Accessed September 23, 2015. https://mises.org/library/anatomy-state.
[10]  Rothbard, Murray N. 
[11] Rothbard, Murray N. For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto. Rev. ed. New York:  Libertarian Review Foundation, 1985.
[12] Rothbard, Murray N. "Anatomy of the State." Mises Institute. 2009. Accessed July 13, 2015. https://mises.org/library/anatomy-state.
[13] Rothbard, Murray N. 
[14] Rothbard, Murray N. What Has Government Done to Our Money? Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig Von Mises Institute, 1990.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Ibid
[17] Hayek, Friedrich A. Von. The Road to Serfdom. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1944.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Ibid
[20] Hayek, Friedrich A. Von
[21] Hayek, Friedrich A. Von. The Constitution of Liberty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Hayek, Friedrich A. Von. The Intellectuals and Socialism. London: IEA Health and Welfare Unit, 1998.
[24] Mises, Ludwig Von. "Human Action - A Treatise on Economics (Scholar's Edition)." www.mises.org. 1998. Accessed July 13, 2015. https://mises.org/sites/default/files/Human Action_3.pdf.
[25] Mises, Ludwig Von. Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War (1985 Edition). Libertarian Press, Incorporated, 1945.