Art / News
RWA announces inaugural winner of Architecture Prize
The Royal West of England Academy (RWA) on Queen’s Road has announced the first ever winner of its new Architecture Prize. Presented at the RWA’s Open Exhibition on the October 15, London-based Puerto Rican architect José Garrido took home the inaugural prize, which is the first of its kind in 166 years. Architecture student Michael Lewis took second place.
London-based architect, José Garrido is the first ever winner of the RWA’s Architecture Prize.
The winning art piece is called Architectural Portraits and features a collection of jewel-like miniatures. José said that the piece “uses familiar gestures to illustrate basic architectural principles: void vs mass, blurred boundaries, tension vs compression, aperture vs enclosure”.
This is another addition to the trophy cabinet of José, who, as part of practice Ian Ritchie Architects, won the RIBA London Building of the Year. The award was for the company’s work on the opera theatre at the Royal Academy of Music.
José’s ‘Architectural Portraits’ displays finely crafted jewel-like miniatures.
Michael Lewis’ runner-up work is called Sketchbook of an Architecture Student, and contains a series of illustrations of Portuguese city Porto, built up over nine months during his studies there. Although still a student, Michael adds this award to his existing European Architecture Medal and nominations for the RIBA Silver Medal and Archiprix International Prize.
José and Michael received their awards in what was a unanimous decision by the judging panel. According to judge Elena Marco, head of department of architecture and the built environment at UWE, both nominees set themselves apart with “outstanding attention to detail”, showing “what architecture is and can be”.
The winning pieces can be seen in the Architecture Room of the RWA’s Open Exhibition alongside a collection of other works until November 15.
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