After 20 Years Without an Opera, an Architect Listed His Dream Projects and Won a Concert Hall and an Airport

In 2020, architect Bjarke Ingels stood before his studio with a confession. He had run his practice for 20 years, done exciting work, won awards, and watched the business grow. He still had not been commissioned to design an opera house, and he realized he was not getting closer on his own.

As Ingels put it, you can "shield yourself against disappointment and failure by not truly confessing" your dreams. He decided to say his dreams out loud, to himself and to everyone around him.

He named a bucket list: an opera house, a philharmonic hall, an airport, a stadium, and a national library. He gave speeches in the studio about why those kinds of civic projects mattered, and he asked his colleagues to back the pursuit with real money.

The problem was a bind that keeps untested firms out. Ingels said that "no one will ever entrust you with an airport until you've already done an airport." Clients apply the same rule to concert halls, opera houses, and the rest of the list.

To get around it, Ingels got everybody to agree that they would be willing "to overinvest up to 25% of our earnings" to win those opportunities when they appeared. That meant spending beyond the normal budget to compete for the rare commissions.

Within less than two years, his firm won the philharmonic in Prague and the airport in Zurich. Ingels did not say the extra spending directly bought those two wins. He said that after stating his ambitions openly to himself and those around him, the wins followed.

He said he does not believe in manifestation as something esoteric. He said there is a practical effect in being brutally honest with yourself and the world, because then everybody can understand a little more clearly what it is you want to do.