All Mies Awards for the Spanish architecture

In parallel.-

Minutes before the beginning of the ceremony I spoke with some of the attendees, including one of the members of the jury, who asked me what my pool was in a smart attempt to avoid the question before the ceremony. Describing who the winner could be, who had options and who did not, the typical situation occurred, that in which you don't remember the names of the possible rejections and you need to ask their name. If the members of the jury can't remember them, it means that your pool is pretty close. By the way, we got it right.

Yesterday's result is the ending of a process in which Europe still reflects its own situation as a complex group of tribes with their own differentiated identities, from the rigid positions that seek to bring the truth of the German area, through the Anglo-Saxon pontificators, to the rest of the world, expectant and hungry for recognition.

Many commented that being the prize awarded to an outstanding work, it pushes into the background excellent and consolidated careers. In this first group were leading the Irish O'Donnell + Tuomey, with a brilliant project, but overly complex and whose versatility in trying to cover all the program with specific responses is an indication of its own rigidity, despite its excellent urban integration and the brilliant use of brick as outer skin. Facing this complexity, the German group, with a project that pretends to recover a Nordic classicism, with perfect execution of the envelope, but with an empty, simple and cold inside, a container where even the light treatment is distant and the stairs just a group of steps.

In parallel, Archea Associati project, well resolved, with well-executed formal gestures, integrated in the territory, but too bombastic in the reception areas and the scenery of the winery. The silence of the creation of wine, broken by the views of the meeting room. In this second group of well-executed projects is Bjarke Ingels's, also with well-learned languages and gestures as shown in the auditorium, a faithful replica of the Kunsthal's auditorium by Rem Koolhaas, with a good project idea, simple but effective and this time yes, simple and intelligent, although their contribution to architecture is rather limited.

Finally, the winners, Barozzi and Veiga. On one side the big surprise, many of the attendants commented that it could have perfectly been an emerging architecture award, given their youth for these kinds of awards, on the other side, its iconic condition, which the architects sought in all the interviews to put some distance and let it fade before their interviewers.

The reality is that the project won. The best project of those who had reached the final. On the way were left projects that one considers as proposals with even more interest than some of those that reached this point, with a higher risk, with a proactive capacity, and in that sense the compilation of the 420 selected is a clear reflection of the European architecture's reality.

The winner was obvious in any pool: iconic, striking photographically speaking, formally clear and well solved. The winners, deserved to win and in this sense the jury was right. Inside the bedroom, as already said, is this the end of a time for an architecture that speaks of formalities and icons? or is it the beginning of a time for other ways and proposals to come, suggested in the group of the 420?