Contesting architectural competitions: Legal mobilization as strategic performativity

This article examines the governance of megaprojects in a post-terror context through a study of the architectural competition to reconstruct Oslo's Government Quarter. On 22 July, 2011, a terrorist bombed the Government complex, claiming eight lives and injuring hundreds before committing a massacre of sixty-nine people at Utøya island. In 2017, the competition for the design of the new Quarter triggered an unprecedented complaints process that lasted until 2019. The article draws on theories of legal mobilization, semiautonomous social fields, and grievance articulation to analyze how EU procurement law, national trauma, professional norms, and state authority interacted in this case. The article introduces the concept of “strategic performativity” to explain how legal mobilization short of litigation served symbolic and professional purposes beyond legal outcomes. It highlights three key strategies: signaling moral commitment to support post-terror reconstruction, reinforcing professional norms, and publicly contesting the power of the state's interlocutor, Statsbygg.