27 January 2023
In this sixth edition of the European Award AHI (Architectural Heritage Intervention), organized jointly with the COAC (Architects’ Association of Catalonia), we present the international jury that will be in charge of choosing those shortlisted, the finalists and the winners in the four categories of the contest: Built Heritage, Exterior Spaces, Urban Planning and Disclosure.
The panel comprises architects and professionals from the sector with extensive experience and recognized capability in the field of intervention in architectural heritage. As in previous years, several members of this panel were winners and finalists in the previous call for the European Award AHI (2021).
In the Built Heritage Category, the jury includes the architect Dikkie Scipio, a partner in the Belgian architecture studio Kaan Architecten, winners in this category in the previous edition with the Royal Museum of Fine Arts (KMSKA), located in Antwerp. Scipio is a Professor of Architecture Design at the Münster University of Applied Sciences, specializing in large-scale projects, museums and heritage, she also works on interior design projects. Kimmo Lintula is a partner of the Finnish architecture firm K2S Architects, where he has carried out notable rehabilitation and restoration projects such as the Helsinki Olympic Stadium -finalist in the 5th edition-, Kamppi Chapel or the Enter-Sipoo secondary school. He is also a professor at the Aalto University School of Art, Design and Architecture in Finland. Lastly, Susana Valbuena Rodriguez, founder in 2004 of the studio Rodríguez Valbuena Architects in León (Spain), from where she works on projects connected to different disciplines related to urban planning, environment, building and intervention in architectural heritage. Among her works are the Regional Plan for Land Planning and Urban Integration "Flores del Sil" in Ponferrada (León), the refurbishment of the Lorenzana building in León, and the archaeological intervention and consolidation of the remains of the Monastery of San Pedro de Eslonza -a finalist project in the previous edition.
The projects entered in the Exterior Spaces Category, will be evaluated by the architect Chris Rankin, a founding partner of the Scottish studio rankinfraser landscape architecture, who has taught architecture at the University of Edinburgh, at Kingston University in London and at L'École nationale supérieure de paysage in Versailles. His most recent works include The Bowline Park near Glasgow, The Strawberry Field in Liverpool or The Dunbar Battery in Scotland -finalist in the last edition of this category: Outdoor Spaces-. The architect and landscape designer Maria Viñé Landia, founding partner of the firm Neuland Architektur Landschaft Gmbh based in Zurich. Among her most recent works feature the Rehabilitation of the Katzensee lido in Zurich or Among gardens in Winterthur. And the third member is the architect Pasqual Herrero Vincent from the architecture cooperative El Fabricante de Espheras in Valencia, who specialises in the management and intervention of architectural heritage, the urban regeneration of historic centres and the design of public space and landscape through processes of citizen participation. Associate Professor of the Department of Architectural Composition of the ETSA-UPV, he is known for projects such as the restoration of La Campaneta ceramic plant and the Plaza de la Sinagoga, which won this category in the previous edition.
In the Urban Planning category, the jury is made up of the Catalan Sara Bartumeus, landscape architect and Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. Co-founder of the Renau Bartumeus studio, her work in social housing, community services and public space have been exhibited and recognized with several national awards. In the last edition of the Award, her project "Study of the urban landscape of the La Nova Esquerra de l'Eixample neighbourhood" was the winner of this category. The Italian architect Carlo Atzeni, Architectural Professor in DICAAR at the University of Cagliari (Sardinia). His fields of research are the recovery and remodelling of the traditional and rural architecture of the Mediterranean, and the modern colonial architecture of North Africa. Finally, the third member of the panel is the Italian Maria Chiara Tosi, professor of Urban Planning at the Iuav University of Venice, from where she also coordinates the research cluster CityLab. In addition, she has participated in the elaboration of different Master Plans at a national level, such as those of Venice, Ferrara or Brescia.
Finally, in the Disclosure category will participate Devi Kituashvili, founder of the studio Mua Architecture&Placemaking based in Tbilisi (Georgia), from where he works committed to constant dialogue between the environment, versatile research methods, a creative approach and in-depth technical knowledge. In the fifth edition of the Award, they were finalists with a study of the Industrial Heritage of Tbilisi. Verena von Beckerath, the German architect and co-founder of the firm Heide & von Beckerath will participate. Professor at the Universität der Künste Berlin, at the Technische Universität in Braunschweig and Cornell University, Ithaca in the United States, since 2016 she has been teaching architecture at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. And the third member of the jury is the Swiss architect Nicola Regusci, co-founder of The Cities Connection Project (CCP), an initiative that aims to connect cities with their architecture, creating synergies between architects, cultural agents, governments and European universities.
To select the Special Mention for Restoration, the architect Pedro Rodriguez Cantalapiedra, Special Mention for Restoration ex-aequo in 2021 with his work Tower of the Church of Santa María Magdalena in Matapozuelos (Valladolid), will collaborate alongside the directors of the Award, Ramon Calonge, Oriol Cusidó, Marc Manzano and Jordi Portal. Rodríguez Cantalapiedra specializes in Architectural Restoration and teaches different courses on Heritage at the Valladolid School of Architecture.