a+u Architecture and Urbanism 20.05_596

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is causing devastating social, economic and political crises in countries around the world. We are all now entering completely unknown territory, and there is no way to predict when it will end. a+u produces our magazine with the kind and generous cooperation of many architects from around the world, and we most fervently hope and pray that the world’s architects will overcome the challenges we all currently face. This month we were scheduled to present a special issue about the EU Mies Award. Next year the EU Mies Award will mark its 34th year, and this special issue was originally intended to offer an overview of trends in European architecture over the past 30 years by introducing works that have won awards to date. While viewing the…

The a+u May 2020 issue features the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award (EU Mies Award). Its organizer, the Fundació Mies van der Rohe was founded in 1983 during the reconstruction of the Barcelona Pavilion (1929). The EU Mies Award has been held biennially since 1988 and marked its 16th edition in 2019. The issue covers all the shortlisted works and the Jury proceedings of each edition that were curated together with Ivan Blasi, an architect and a coordinator of the award at the Mies Foundation, along with an essay by Angelica Fitz, one of the jury members in 2019. Additionally, the issue features another initiative of Mies Foundation, the Art Intervention at the Barcelona Pavilion. 8 works are highlighted here and supported with an…

Ivan Blasi “The Barcelona Pavilion is a complete lesson in architecture: it is palimpsest, in that its logic grows naturally out of the traces of what went before; it is paradigm, in that its rhetoric broke with established conventions to become emblematic of modernity; and iconoclastic, in that it refutes redundant (in this case the overload of modernist “moralism”), so restoring to architecture its innermost simple-minded logic: a confrontation between itself and activity in general. Its iconographic rhetoric is recognised by our experience, where it is automatically transformed and redeemed: we recognise it as a great work of art and a paradigm of beauty.”1 The reconstruction of the Pavilion between 1983 and 19862 meant not only the actualization of its physical space, but also the creation of an international platform for the…

Jury Members Kenneth Frampton, Chair Ricardo Bofill François Burckhardt Alessandro Giulianelli, representative of the EEC Cultural Commission Vittorio Gregotti Hans Hollein Ignasi de Solà-Morales, Secretary Mies van der Rohe Award for European Architecture 1988. Act of the Jury On September 24, 1988, at 4:30 p.m., the Jury of the European Architecture Award ‘Mies van der Rohe’, promoted by the E.E.C. Cultural Commission, the European Parliament, the Council of Europe and the Barcelona City Council through the Mies van der Rohe Foundation, met at the Palau de la Virreina in Barcelona. The Jury, presided over by the British architect Kenneth Frampton, is composed of the architects Hans Hollein (Vienna), Vittorio Gregotti (Milan), François Burckhardt (Paris), Ricardo Bofill (Barcelona) and Ignasi de Solà-Morales (Barcelona), who acts as Secretary. The architect Alessandro Giulianelli also attends the meeting as the personal representative of…

Jury Members Kenneth Frampton, Chair Ricardo Bofill François Burkhardt Vittorio Gregotti Hans Hollein Ignasi de Solà-Morales, Secretary Lluís Hortet, Director Diane Gray, Coordinator Mies van der Rohe Pavilion Award for European Architecture 1990. Act of the Jury In the name of both the EEC and the Fundació Mies van der Rohe, the jury for the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion Award for European Architecture 1990 has unanimously decided to award this year’s prize to the Third London Airport (a+u 91:10), completed at Stansted, U.K. to the designs of Norman Foster and Foster Associates. Having been synonymous with the spirit of an enlightened modernity expressed in terms of a rational and elegant architecture, airports have evolved over the last quarter of a century into relatively efficient, but often unnecessarily labyrinthine complexes where it is difficult to find the main entrance as it…

Jury Members Norman Foster, Chair Henri Ciriani Kenneth Frampton Herman Hertzberger Henning Larsen Álvaro Siza Vieira Ignasi de Solà-Morales Francis Strauven Elia Zenghelis Lluís Hortet, Secretary Diane Gray, Coordinator Mies van der Rohe Pavilion Award for European Architecture 1992. Act of the Jury On October 23, 1992, the Jury of the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion Award for European Architecture 1992 met in Brussels. The Jury, presided over by British architect, Norman Foster, was composed of architects, Henri E. Ciriani (France), Kenneth Frampton (United Kingdom), Herman Hertzberger (The Netherlands), Henning Larsen (Denmark), Álvaro Siza Vieira (Portugal), Ignasi de Solà-Morales (Spain), Francis Strauven (Belgium), and Elia Zenghelis (Greece). The Director of the Fundacio Mies van der Rohe-Barcelona, Lluís Hortet, acted as secretaryzw, with no intervening powers. Infrastructure Industrial Education Sport & Leisure Government & Civic Mixed use – Cultural & Social After an extensive debate, the Jury made a restricted selection…