Alvar Aalto Medal awarded to Spanish architects Fuensanta Nieto and Enrique Sobejano
The Alvar Aalto Medal has been awarded to the Spanish architect duo Fuensanta Nieto and Enrique Sobejano. First awarded in 1967, the medal was now presented for the twelfth time. The winners were announced at a seminar marking Architecture Day at Helsinki City Hall on February 3rd, 2014.
Creative collaborators since the early 1980s, Nieto and Sobejano are renowned for the great variety of their portfolio, although their best-known works are
galleries and museums. Employing a team of forty, Nieto Sobejano Architects has
offices based in Madrid and Berlin. The duo has received abundant professional
recognition, including the prestigious Aga Khan Award for Architecture. Their
work has also been exhibited at the Venice Biennale and at MoMa in New York.
Both architects divide their time between creative assignments and lecturing at
European University of Madrid and the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK).
The architectural philosophy of Nieto and Sobejano is strongly rooted in the
culture and history of their homeland. Both have ranked among Spain's leading
architects since 1975.
The jury commented as follows: “The work of Nieto and Sobejano demonstrates how
an architect's cultural background can inspire architecture of outstanding
quality and expressive power. Nieto and Sobejano's work has a primal energy
ranking it among the world's most compelling statements and groundbreaking
achievements in architecture.”
The jury further added that Nieto and Sobejano restore faith in the
adaptability of contemporary western architecture, also answering the
contemporary demand for sustainability and ecological sensitivity.
The outstanding quality of Nieto and Sobejano's work is essentially rooted in
traditional, widely-recognized values in architecture. They are masters of
light, creating clean, crisply resonating sequences of spaces. Their
outstanding professionalism shows in their talent for stripping spaces of all
superfluous, distracting elements. Their strong sense of structure and its
innovative variation is beautifully expressed in works such as the Contemporary
Art Center (Córdoba, Spain, 2013), where clean geometrical concrete surfaces
form sequences of nuanced interiors, the wall structures evoking an inventive
architectural identity that is completely unique to this building. A heightened
sense of structure and robustness is similarly foregrounded in another of their
major projects, the Auditorium and Convention Centre of Aragon Expo (Zaragoza,
Spain, 2008).
Nieto and Sobejano always prioritize the environment when designing. In their
latest competition entry for the Arvo Pärt Centre (Laulasmaa, Estonia, 2014),
they have adapted their philosophy to Nordic latitudes and a northern boreal
setting. History and climate likewise inspired the subterranean design of the
Museum & Research Centre Madinat Al Zahra (Córdoba, Spain, 2009), which
blends subtly with the flat plains surrounding it.
The Jury noted that Nieto and Sobejano have enjoyed a rising career path that
in many respects brings to mind Alvar Aalto. “Their portfolio is varied and
instantly recognizable, maintaining outstanding standards of creative
excellence, informed by a philosophy of respect for human life and the
environment. Nieto & Sobejano proudly carry on a tradition of humanism in
architecture,” stated the chairman, Rainer Mahlamäki.
The members of this year's jury were professor and architect Rainer Mahlamäki
(Finland), architect Simo Freese (Finland), architect Wessel de Jonge (The
Netherlands) and professor and architect Dorte Mandrup–Poulsen (Denmark).
The medal is conferred by the Museum of Finnish Architecture, the Finnish
Association of Architects SAFA, the Architectural Society, the Alvar Aalto
Foundation and the City of Helsinki.
www.mfa.fi/aaltomitali
For more information and press images, please contact:
Ilona Hildén
Ilona.hilden@mfa.fi