On 2 July past the 2015 FAD Architecture and Interior Design Awards ceremony was held at FAD headquarters at the Disseny Hub Barcelona. Barcelona’s mayoress Ada Colau presided over the event.

The FAD Architecture and Interior Design Awards are the most prestigious in Spain and Portugal. Launched in 1958, they have every year since served to judge the best of modern Iberian architecture. Two years back an international category was created, open to studios based in Spain and Portugal that have projects in any country round the world.

This year a total of 458 works were submitted, from which the judging panel last May selected 16 finalists. 4 finalists were chosen in the international category.

The panel gave particular credit to “projects that, sensitive to the setting and critical as to function, address the complexity of the issues having regard for the time and experiential dimensions of the architecture; works in which material and construction fundamentally underpin the concept.”

The jury for the 57th edition of the FAD Awards, chaired by architect Víctor López Cotelo and with panel members Ignasi Bonet, Agustí Costa, Mònica Rivera, Mariana Pestana and Gabriel Valeri, decided to award the following prizes:

2015 FAD Architecture Award (ex aequo)

Work: Casa Bastida

Location: Begur (Girona)

Authors: Elisabet Capdeferro i Pla , Ramon Bosch i Pagès, architects (Bosch Capdeferro, s.c.p.)

Building Engineer: Xavier de Bolòs.

Jury verdict: “Credit was given to the profoundly enhanced integration of the preexisting building and the privileged setting. The lines between structure and nature are diffused by the use of subtle underlying elements of greenery which, as well as increasing privacy, provide shade and enhance the relationship between internal and external space.”

2015 FAD Architecture Award (ex aequo)

Work: Ozadi Tavira Hotel

Location: Quinta das Oliveiras, Algarve. Tavira (Portugal)

Author: Pedro Campos Costa, architect (Campos Costa Arquitectos)

Quantity Surveyor: Procontrol S.A.

Building Engineer: Miguel Lourenço, JSJ Lda.

Jury verdict: “The renovation of this Hotel erected in the 1960s has been approached intelligently and sensitively highlighting the values of the original construction. The intervention achieves its cusp in its reformulation of the access level and a new pool area with a pavilion housing the coffee shop and changing rooms. The new pavilion, complex in its geometry, has been integrated discreetly and with great subtleness between the existing structure and the new pool area, arranging the access points around the great tree that articulates the whole with its majestic presence.

The geometrical, spatial and constructional complexity of the pavilion rests not on seeking the limelight as mere gesture, but rather surrendering with  naturalness to an architectural will to create pleasing surroundings and discrete spatial flows imaginatively and with freshness, achieving a

welcoming whole where the architecture acts as companion and agent of transformation.”

2015 FAD Interior Design Award

Work: Sāo Paulo Library

Location:  Rua de Sāo Paulo, sn. Apelaçāo (Portugal)

Authors: Patrícia Marques, J. Paulo Costa, architects (Site Specific Arquitectura, Lda)

Jury verdict: “Luminosity, precise dimensioning and a unified choice of materials, textures and colours form the basis for a successful architectural objective that interprets the spiritual requirements of the religious community intelligently and sensitively.”

2015 FAD Town and Landscape Award

Work: Access improvement to Vitoria-Gasteiz Historic Centre

Location: Vitoria-Gasteiz (Álava)

Authors: Fernando Tabuenca González, Jesús Leache Resano, architects (Tabuenca & Leache, Arquitectos)

Quantity Surveyor: Arturo Pérez Espinosa

Building Engineer: Luis Maestu

Jury verdict: “This intervention in Vitoria-Gasteiz’s historic centre provides a solution that contributes a synthetic vision to the problems of the distinctive layout of the city’s medieval structure and particularly the surroundings of the Old Seminary. The result is an effective, subtle and sensitive exercise that grants prominence to the Seminary’s apse, provides answers for pedestrian walkways and enhances accessibility by means of mechanical ramps and elevator, all the outcome of seeking a peaceful and lasting integration appropriate to the time dimension that underlies the urban scale.”

2015 FAD Ephemeral Intervention Award

Work: The Tears of Santa Eulàlia

Location: Casa Padellàs, MUHBA, Plaça del Rei, Barcelona

Authors: Mariona Benedito Ribelles, Martí Sanz Ausàs, architects, Ana Bádenas, Júlia Doz, Bruguers Gallego, Jordi Juanola, Joan Ruiz, architecture students (ETSAB-UPC)

Jury verdict: “A striking work combining the dynamism of the thawing spheres of light as a simulation of Santa Eulalia’s tears with the metallic sound play produced by the harmonic cadence of their dripping. The aural effects of the rhythmic drops of water within a courtyard serving as soundbox achieves its evocation of the chilling martyrdom and agonising passing of time, at the same time marking the slow perishing of the installation itself. An intelligent exercise in synthesising physical phenomena with stirring light and sound results in reaching a level that is poetic.”

FAD International Awards

Prizes with an international reach have been awarded for the second year running with the aim of granting recognition to high quality architecture  created within the Peninsula and executed in other countries. This section includes the same categories as the FAD Awards, and is open to all  studios headquartered in Spain and Portugal.

The judging panel for the International Section of the 57^th FAD Architecture and Interior Design Awards, made up of Oliver Thill, chairman, and panel judges Ethel Baraona and Andrés Jaque, decided to grant the following prize:

Work: 253 Homess at Ivry-Sur-Seine, Paris Region. France (First Phase)

Location: Carnot Vérollot, Ivry-Sur-Seine (França)

Authors: Miquel Lacasta, doctor in architecture, Marc Chalamanch, Carmen Santana, architects (Archikubik)  

Quantity Surveyor: José Sanz IC2I

Building Engineers: EPDC

Jury verdict: “This project is an elegant tranquil complex conceived as a garden suburb on the outskirts of Paris whose social dimension is accentuated by its long term vision and participative process. The project generates its own context, developing different layers of complexity between the public and the private, thereby giving meaning to the setting. It presents a caringly landscaped traffic-free space between buildings. Attention to detail is also found in the balcony woodwork and the public access zones. Spaces which act as a filter between public streets and the interior of private homes invite the residents to live in community (perfect for children and older people). The jury considers it highly important to re-address the subject of social housing in the context of architectural competitions, as a much-needed debate clearly reflecting the current state of architecture and the role of architects at this time.”

2015 FAD Opinion Awards

Those attending the ceremony were able to vote in the various categories of the Opinion Awards. The winners were:

Architecture:

Work: Centre de Recerca ICTA-ICP. UAB

Location: Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona

Authors: Claudi Aguiló Aran, architect, Albert Domingo Ollé, industrial engineer (data AE), David Lorente Ibáñez, Josep Ricart Ulldemolins, Xavier Ros Majó, Roger Tudó Galí, architects (HArquitectes)

Interior Design:

Work: Poble-Sec home re-design

Location: Barcelona 

Authors: Miquel Mariné, Pepe Ramos Temiño, architects

Ciudad y paisaje:

Work: Vitoria-Gasteiz Historic Centre access improvement

Location: Vitoria-Gasteiz

Authors: Fernando Tabuenca González, Jesús Leache Resano, architects (Tabuenca & Leache Arquitectos).

Ephemeral interventions:

Work: Saint Eulàlia’s Tears

Location: Barcelona

Authors: Mariona Benedito Ribelles, Martí Sanz Ausàs, architects, Ana Bádenas, Júlia Doz, Bruguers Gallego, Jordi  Juanola, Joan Ruiz, architecture students (ETSAB-UPC)

International:

Work: Szczecin Philharmonic

Location: Szczecin (Poland)

Authors: Alberto Veiga, Fabrizio Barozzi, architects (Barozzi / Veiga)

2015 FAD Thought and Criticism Award

The judging panel for the FAD Award in the Thought and Criticism category was composed of Federico Soriano, Enric Llorach and Ramon Faura. Of 37 works submitted, the panel selected nine finalists, from which the FAD Award has been granted ex aequo to the following regular publications having regard to the fact that “both publications seek to present and reposition their review format into another, tailored to the circumstances in which digital versions have secured a substantial presence and influence. In this respect they are looking to focus more in depth on presenting subjects for reflection opening up the possibilities rather than compendiums that round off topics of thought”:

Title: Desierto

Authors: Gabriel Ruiz-Larrea, Nuria Úrculo and Natalia David

Publisher: Paper / Architectural Histamine

Jury verdict: “The Desierto review attaches

importance in equal measure to the paper format itself as much in relation to the written theme as in the way of reading the content in the way we are accustomed these days. It is also worth remarking on the magnificent manifesto presented in the various issues containing high quality ideas. In summary, it is a mature and clear-sighted statement of ideas”

Title: Quaderns d’Arquitectura i Urbanisme

Author: José Zabala, editor, Ethel Baraona, Guillermo López and Anna Puigjaner 

Publisher: Col·legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya

Jury verdict: “Quaderns places great stress on the relationship between hard copy and digital, blog and observatory, thereby creating an immediacy and exhaustiveness that have opened the way for this review to become a common point for synthesis or for bringing forth and launching new themes. In this regard the panel finds special merit not just in the issue submitted for this edition but in the overall activities carried out in the five preceding issues (nos. 261 to 265).”

The jury would likewise wish to grant an honorary award to Carlos Martí Aris on the occasion of the republication of his 1988 doctoral thesis Las variaciones de la identidad (Variations in identity an essay on type in architecture). The panel, needless to say, wishes to acknowledge the value of a text that, still today twenty-seven years after it was delivered as a thesis, provides interesting arguments for reflection; but also and above all to recognise his intellectual rigour and generosity during the course of a career made up not just of his teaching work but also periods in publishing, by now legendary, such as the 2C city construction magazine.

A history of the doyen of European architecture and interior design awards

In the difficult years following the Spanish Civil War, materials were in scarce supply and so were projects, while the régime imposed its grandiose Herrerian tastes. A large section of rationalist architects had been purged or were in exile. The only schools of architecture were in Madrid and Barcelona, each producing some fifteen graduates each year.

Towards 1955, however, a group of young Spanish architects started  reintroducing modern and contemporary architecture, doing their utmost to learn and bring themselves up to date. Taking the baton passed on from Barcelona City Council’s earlier Annual Awards for Artistic Buildings which rewarded with prizes the architecture and business establishments of Barcelona between 1899 and 1930, Fomento de las Artes Decorativas in 1958 created the FAD Architecture and Interior Design Awards, sponsored by the architect Oriol Bohigas. They were designed to recognise the fruits of that nascent contemporary architecture, which was to grow to be so important around the world in later decades.

Ever since, the FAD Awards have been granting prizes year by year to the best works in Barcelonese, Catalan and Iberian architecture. They have done so with independence and constancy overcoming a whole range of obstacles in order to become the oldest awards of their kind in Europe —possibly the world— and among the most prestigious.