Prince of Asturias delivers Spanish International Architecture Awards

It is with great sadness that Zaha Hadid Architects have confirmed that Dame Zaha Hadid, DBE died suddenly in Miami in the early hours of this morning. She had contracted bronchitis earlier this week and suffered a sudden heart attack while being treated in hospital. Zaha Hadid was widely regarded to be the greatest female architect in the world today. Born in Baghdad in 1950, she studied mathematics at the American University of Beirut before starting her architectural journey in 1972 at the Architectural Association in London. By 1979 she had established her own practice in London – Zaha Hadid Architects – garnering a reputation across the world for her ground-breaking theoretical works including The Peak in Hong Kong (1983), the Kurfürstendamm in Berlin (1986) and the Cardiff Bay Opera House in Wales (1994). Working with office partner Patrik Schumacher, her interest was in the interface between architecture, landscape, and geology; which her practice integrates with the use of innovative technologies often resulting in unexpected and dynamic architectural forms. Zaha Hadid’s first major built commission, one that affirmed her international recognition, was the Vitra Fire Station in Weil Am Rhein, Germany (1993); subsequent notable projects including the MAXXI: Italian National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome (2009), the London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympic Games (2011) and the Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku (2013) illustrate her quest for complex, fluid space. Buildings such as the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati (2003) and the Guangzhou Opera House in China (2010) have also been hailed as architecture that transforms our ideas of the future with visionary spatial concepts defined by advanced design, material and construction processes. In 2004, Zaha Hadid became the first woman to be awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize. She twice won the UK’s most prestigious architecture award, the RIBA Stirling Prize: in 2010 for the MAXXI Museum in Rome, a building for the staging of 21st century art, the distillation of years of experimentation, a mature piece of architecture conveying a calmness that belies the complexities of its form and organisation; and the Evelyn Grace Academy, a unique design, expertly inserted into an extremely tight site, that shows the students, staff and local residents they are valued and celebrates the school’s specialism throughout its fabric, with views of student participation at every turn. Zaha Hadid’s other awards included the Republic of France’s Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Japan’s Praemium Imperiale and in 2012, Zaha Hadid was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. She was made Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and Fellow of the American Institute of Architecture. She held various academic roles including the Kenzo Tange Chair at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University; the Sullivan Chair at the University of Illinois, School of Architecture. Hadid also taught studios at Columbia University, Yale University and the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. Zaha Hadid was recently awarded the RIBA’s 2016 Royal Gold Medal, the first woman to be awarded the prestigious honour in her own right. Sir Peter Cook wrote the following citation: "In our current culture of ticking every box, surely Zaha Hadid succeeds, since (to quote the Royal Gold Medal criteria) she is someone “who has made a significant contribution to the theory or practice of architecture.... for a substantial body of work rather than for work which is currently fashionable.” Indeed her work, though full of form, style and unstoppable mannerism, possesses a quality that some of us might refer to as an impeccable ‘eye’: which we would claim is a fundamental in the consideration of special architecture and is rarely satisfied by mere ‘fashion’. And surely her work is special. For three decades now, she has ventured where few would dare: if Paul Klee took a line for a walk, then Zaha took the surfaces that were driven by that line out for a virtual dance and then deftly folded them over and then took them out for a journey into space. In her earlier, ‘spiky’ period there was already a sense of vigour that she shared with her admired Russian Suprematists and Constructivists – attempting with them to capture that elusive dynamic of movement at the end of the machine age. Necessarily having to disperse effort through a studio production, rather than being a lone artist, she cottoned–on to the potential of the computer to turn space upon itself. Indeed there is an Urban Myth that suggests that the very early Apple Mac ‘boxes’ were still crude enough to plot the mathematically unlikely – and so Zaha with her mathematics background seized upon this and made those flying machine projections of the Hong Kong Peak project and the like. Meanwhile, with paintings and special small drawings Zaha continued to lead from the front. She has also been smart enough to pull in some formidable computational talent without being phased by its ways. Thus the evolution of the ‘flowing’ rather than spikey architecture crept up upon us in stages, as did the scale of her commissions, but in most cases, they remained clear in identity and control. When you entered the Fire Station at Vitra, you were conscious of being inside one of those early drawings and yes, it could be done. Yet at perhaps its highest, those of us lucky enough to see the Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku in the flesh, can surely never have been in such a dream-like space, with its totality, its enormous internal ramp and dart-like lights seeming to have come from a vocabulary that lies so far beyond the normal architecture that we assess or rationalize. So we are presenting her with this Medal as a British Institution: and as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire: thus she might seem to be a member of our British Establishment. Yet in reality, many of our chattering classes and not a few fellow architects have treated her with characteristic faint praise, and when she heroically won the Cardiff Opera House competition, blocking the scheme. Or when we awarded her the RIBA Stirling Prize for the school in South London – her second win in a row - we, the jury, were loudly derided by a number of distinguished architects. Of course, in our culture of circumspection and modesty her work is certainly not modest, and she herself is the opposite of modest. Indeed her vociferous criticism of poor work or stupidity recalls the line-side comments of the tennis player John McEnroe. Yet this is surely characteristic of the seriousness with which she takes the whole business: sloppiness and waywardness pain her and she cannot play the comfy British game of platitudinous waffle that is the preferred cushion adopted by many people of achievement or power. Her methods and perhaps much of her psychology remain Mesopotamian and not a little scary: but certainly clear. As a result, it is perhaps a little lonely there up at the top, surrounded now by some very considerable talent in the office, but feared somewhat and distanced from the young. Yet in private Zaha is gossipy and amusing, genuinely interested in the work of talented colleagues who do very different architecture such as Steven Holl, and she was the first to bring to London talent such as Lebbeus Woods or Stanley Saiotowitz. She is exceptionally loyal to her old friends: many of whom came from the Alvin Boyarsky period of the Architectural Association: which seems to remain as her comfort zone and golden period of friendship. Encouraged and promoted at an early age by Boyarsky, she has rewarded the AA with an unremitting loyalty and fondness for it. The history of the Gold Medal must surely include many major figures who commanded a big ship and one ponders upon the operation involved that gets such strong concepts as the MAXXI in Rome – in which the power of organization is so clear - or the Bergisel Ski Jump in Innsbruck where dynamic is at last captured – or the Aquatics Centre for the London Olympics where the lines diving boards were as fluid as the motion of the divers - made into reality. And she has done it time and time again in Vienna, Marseilles, Beijing and Guangzhou. Never has she been so prolific, so consistent. We realize that Kenzo Tange and Frank Lloyd Wright could not have drawn every line or checked every joint, yet Zaha shares with them the precious role of towering, distinctive and relentless influence upon all around her that sets the results apart from the norm. Such self-confidence is easily accepted in film-makers and football managers, but causes some architects to feel uncomfortable, maybe they’re secretly jealous of her unquestionable talent. Let’s face it, we might have awarded the medal to a worthy, comfortable character. We didn’t, we awarded it to Zaha: larger than life, bold as brass and certainly on the case. Our Heroine. How lucky we are to have her in London." The year 2015 comes to a close has given us great architectural projects that continue to raise the bar for technical capabilities and wonder to which we are able to reach. In this report, we discuss some of the highlights of this year has offered new as suggestive as the new tallest buildings in China and Africa and to build a luxury apartment building in Manhattan that exceeds in height to the very Empire State. 1. 432 Park Avenue This apartment block in the heart of Manhattan, between Calles 56 and 57 will revolutionize the skyline of the city and will be the tallest residential tower in the western hemisphere with its 425 meters high. The views cover the whole city and its luxury apartments, only available to privileged pocket will be configured as palladianos spaces provided, with ceilings of almost 4 meters and windows 3x3, with a panoramic so far only been achieved by helicopter flights in NY. 2. Shanghai Tower In the financial area of ​​Lujiazui in Shanghai, this new prototype of skyscrapers and new icon of modernity of the Chinese superpower stands. With its altitude of 632 meters has been ranked as the tallest building in China and the world's second, making way for a new concept of vertical city where business spaces, hotel and a great range of restaurants, shopping centers combine and cafes. Its innovative design spiral and a second glass skin has provided for ventilation and innovative use of renewable energy. 3. The seat of the Louvre in Abu Dhabi Planned for 2012 but delayed until 2016, and takes shape this stunning contemporary building that will display works by Van Gogh, Warhol, Monet or Matisse through an agreement between the governments of Fracia and UAE will lead the first universal museum built on a Arab country as an example of harmony between civilizations. Architecturally, the Jean Nouvel project aims to invent a new model of city-museum with a renewed aesthetic of Moorish architecture and the centerpiece of a huge dome. 4. Shimao Wonderland Intercontinental hotel One of the most visually impressive works of 2015 is this luxury hotel designed by the British firm Atkins being built in Songjiang District in Shanghai. Leveraging the vast cavity of an abandoned quarry, it has designed an embedded in the ground with a facade of over 100 meters and the construction of underwater levels taking advantage of a pool of existing water will result in a futuristic building that will house guest building from $ 300 per night. 5. Al Noor Tower Casablanca Still in its initial phase, the singular form has earned him the nickname "The Tower of the Lord of the Rings of Africa", particularly Barad-dur, tower-fortress of Sauron. Which promises to be the tallest tower in Africa, will be signed by the Dubai-based company Middle East Development LLC and will reach 540 meters to revolutionize the modest skyline of the economic capital of Morocco with a new residential space and businesses that want to boost the regional economy.

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El objeto de la convocatoria es premiar el mejor Proyecto Fin de Carrera de Arquitectura del año 2014. Los premios serán honoríficos, realizando una entrevista al ganador y para mayor conocimiento, se recogerán los proyectos premiados en la página web www.tvarquitectura.com, ayudando a la difusión de los estudiantes que presenten su proyecto a este concurso. Puedes descargar los 5 paneles con la máxima resolución en este enlace This shop, specialized in selling pineapple cake (popular sweet in Taiwan), is in the shape of a bamboo basket. It is built on a joint system called “Jiigoku-Gumi,” traditional method used in Japanese wooden architecture (often observed in Shoji: vertical and cross pieces in the same width are entwined in each other to form a muntin grid). Normally the two pieces intersect in two dimensions, but here they are combined in 30 degrees in 3 dimensions (or in cubic), which came into a structure like a cloud. With this idea, the section size of each wood piece was reduced to as thin as 60mm×60mm. As the building is located in middle of the residential area in Aoyama, we wanted to give some soft and subtle atmosphere to it, which is completely different from a concrete box. We expect that the street and the architecture could be in good chemistry. Architects Kengo Kuma and Associates Vídeo: Vicente Hecht The Watson House. Boldre Location: Boldre, north of Lymington, New Forest National Park, Hampshire, England Architects: John Pardey Architects Date: 2.013 Video: RIBA

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Barceló Temporary Market. Madrid Location: Calle Barceló. Madrid Architects: Nieto y Sobejano Date: 2014 Video: Taller de Casqueria   This award is given annually by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) British or European building designed by architect member who has contributed most to the evolution of architecture in the past year. The finalists this year are: - The "Shard" Tower, Renzo Piano Building Workshop. - Aquatics Center, Zaha Hadid Architects. - Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, Haworth Tompkins. - Library of Birmingham, Mecanoo. - New wing University London School of Economics London, O'Donnell & Tuomey Architects - Manchester School of Art (Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios). RIBA President, Stephen Hodder, said that the designs this year, coincidentally all located in the UK and who were chosen from a list of 56 shortlisted. "The list of finalists includes extraordinary-pool buildings, office block, theater, library and a university-pretty, that inspire and transform the buildings so that their users can savor and be proud of them," said Hodder. Great buildings, according to the president, "when you look more closely, both internally and externally, and materials, are most impressive." The name of the award-winning architectural firm in the 2014 edition will be announced on October 16 at a ceremony in the same Institute. The six finalists emerged from a list of 56 pre-selected, 44 from the UK and twelve other European Union already won two separate awards the RIBA in national and international categories. The Stirling Prize was founded in 1996 and is named after James Stirling, a leading British architect who died in 1992 having received the Pritzker Prize in 1981. more Info

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New Mission Hall. Plaistow Location: Plaistow, West Sussex Architects: Adam Richards Archtects Date: 2.013 Video: RIBA   The architectural Carlos Arroyo, has won the tender for the Maison du Projet de Roubaix La Lainière! This is a Cradle to Cradle intervention to initiate regeneration of an obsolete industrial complex near Lille, France. A "video-teaser" is presented as project progress.   Carlos Arroyo House in Epsom. Surrey Architects: Eldridge Smerin Date: 2.012 Video: RIBA A show based on the writings of Swiss architect Peter Zumthor of / with Hélène Cattin and Anna Hohler dates: Wednesday 28 and Thursday 29 May 2014, 21 h Convent of Santa María de los Reyes C / Santiago 33, Sevilla Free admission seating Learn more http://www.cieuntourdesuisse.ch/ Cultural Center of Castelo Branco Location: Largo da Devesa City Square, Castelo Branco (Portugal) Architects: Mateo Arquitectura Date: 2.013 Video: Adrià Goula The Jury for the Award –convened by the Prince of Asturias Foundation– was chaired by José Lladó y Fernández-Urrutia and made up of Bárbara Allende Gil de Biedma, José Luis Cienfuegos Marcello, Carlos Fitz-James Stuart Martínez de Irujo, Duke of Huéscar, Guillermo García-Alcalde Fernández, Carmen Giménez Martín, Enrique González Macho, Catalina Luca de Tena y García-Conde, Hans Meinke Paege, Elena Ochoa Foster, Benedetta Tagliabue, Patricia Urquiola Hidalgo, Carlos Urroz Arincibia, Miguel Zugaza Miranda and José Antonio Caicoya Cores (acting as secretary). This candidature was put forward by Richard Armstrong, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in New York. Frank Owen Gehry was born in 1929 in Toronto (Canada), but adopted American nationality after moving to Los Angeles in 1947 with his parents. He graduated in Architecture in 1954 from the University of Baja California and began working in the studio of Victor Gruen. After completing his military service, he studied Urban Planning at Harvard and returned to Gruen’s office. He moved to Paris in 1961 with his wife and two daughters, where he worked for a year with André Rémondet. In 1962, he opened his own studio –Frank O. Gehry and Associates– in Los Angeles, from which he has worked on projects in America, Europe and Asia for five decades now. He rose to prominence in the 70s for his buildings with sculptural forms that combine unusual industrial materials such as titanium and glass. During this same period, he began to develop a role as a designer of furniture with his Easy Edges collection, conceived as a low-cost range comprising fourteen pieces made out of cardboard, subsequently followed by the more artistic range, Experimental Edges. Since the late 80s, the name of Frank Gehry has been associated with the deconstructionist movement, characterized by fragmentation and the rupture of a linear design process, resulting in buildings with a striking visual appearance. The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (1997) and the Nationale-Nederlanden building in Prague (1996), known as the Dancing House, may be considered among the most prominent examples of this formal language. Likewise noteworthy among his works are the Aerospace Museum of California (1984), the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany (1989), the Frederick Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis (1993), the DZ Bank building in Berlin (1998), the Gehry Tower in Hannover (2001), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Stata Center in Cambridge (2003), the Walt Disney Concert Hall (2003) and the Maggie's Centre in Dundee, Scotland (2003). Gehry has also worked on a museum of contemporary art in Paris for the Louis Vuitton Foundation, the design of his first playground in New York, at the southern tip of the island of Manhattan known as The Battery, and the remodelling and recovery of Mayer Park in Lisbon, which included the restoration of the Capitolio Theatre. In Spain, 2006 saw the opening of the Herederos del Marqués de Riscal winery in Elciego (Álava), and he has also designed the Sagrera Tower in Barcelona. His work has been the subject of numerous case studies and, in 2006, the film director Sydney Pollack released the documentary Sketches of Frank Gehry, presented at Cannes. In that same year, he presented his project for the new Guggenheim Museum in Abu Dhabi. In 2008, he designed the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in Hyde Park, London. The first residential building in Asia designed by Gehry, the Opus Hong Kong tower, was opened in 2012. He is currently working on the design of the Eisenhower Memorial to be built in Washington; on the West Campus that Facebook is to build in Menlo Park, California and on the project of a residential tower in Berlin, which will become the tallest skyscraper in the city. His designs have received over one hundred awards around the world. Noteworthy among the distinctions he has received are more than a dozen honorary degrees, the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize (USA, 1977), the Pritzker Prize (1989), the Wolf Prize in Arts (Israel, 1992), the Praemium Imperiale (Japan, 1992), the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize (1994), the Friedrich Kiesler Prize (Austria, 1998), and the Twenty Five Year Award from the American Institute of Architects (2012). He also holds the National Medal of Arts (USA, 1998), the Lotos Medal of Merit (USA, 1999), the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects (1999), and the Royal Gold Medal for the promotion of architecture (2000), awarded by the Queen of England. Gehry has been a member of the Pritzker Prize Jury and of institutions such as the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the US National Design Academy and the Royal Academy of Arts. As stated in the Statutes of the Foundation, the Prince of Asturias Awards are aimed at rewarding “the scientific, technical, cultural, social and humanitarian work carried out at an international level by individuals, institutions or groups of individuals or institutions”. Within this spirit, the Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts will be bestowed on those “whose work in Film, Theatre, Dance, Music, Photography, Painting, Sculpture, Architecture or any other form of artistic expression constitutes a significant contribution to the cultural heritage of mankind”. This year a total of 36 candidatures from Argentina, Austria, China, Estonia, France, Georgia, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Mexico, Romania, Paraguay, Philippines, Portugal, the United Kingdom, the United States, Zimbabwe and Spain ran for the award. This is the first of eight Prince of Asturias Awards, which are being bestowed this year for the thirty-fourth time. The rest of awards will be announced in the coming weeks in the following order: Social Sciences, Communication and Humanities, Technical Scientific Research, Literature, International Cooperation and Sports, with the Concord award being announced in September. Each of the Prince of Asturias Awards, which date back to 1981, is endowed with 50,000 Euros, a commissioned sculpture donated by Joan Miró, a diploma and an insignia. The awards will be presented in the autumn in Oviedo at a grand ceremony chaired by H.R.H. the Prince of Asturias.