The winners of the Richard H. Driehaus Building Arts Awards, presented annually to four master craftspeople in various traditional building trades in Spain, have been announced.
Stone Carving and Masonry Category
Winner: Lluc Mir Anguera
Mallorcan-born Lluc Mir Anguera is what is known in the region as a master marger, a specialist in the construction of dry-stone walls that define and structure some of the area's most beautiful landscapes: retaining structures that manage elevation changes, simple property boundaries, and divisions between agricultural fields built using the very stones cleared to cultivate the land.
Recently declared an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO, this technique requires a high degree of mastery, as the stability of these structures relies entirely on the skillful placement of the stones without the use of any mortar.
Woodworking Category
Winner: Miguel Ángel Balmaseda
Hailing from Écija, Balmaseda dedicates himself to carpentry and cabinetmaking, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, from whom he learned the trade. At the age of nine, he began helping his father in the workshop, balancing this work with his studies until completing high school.
In his workshop, he crafts beams, corbels, capitals, coffered ceilings, galleries, and furniture. Yet, like his predecessors, he is particularly renowned for creating exceptional doors and windows—specifically, the characteristic “puertas con orejeras” (lugged doors) typical of the Écija tradition.
These doors, characterized by their rich geometric chamfered or beaded designs, often achieve a high level of complexity. The intricacy of their design depends on the number of centers or sections into which each door is divided. While they typically feature one to three centers, some designs can have up to five. The unique “orejeras” that crown the upper corners of the frames—and occasionally the top center as well—come in a wide variety of shapes, with profiles that can be either straight or curved. Also highly characteristic of the region is painting the central groove of the moldings with lampblack or a very dark green pigment.
Finishes and Other Traditional Building Crafts Category
Winner: Luis Prieto
He completed his training with studies in painting, drawing, stucco, colorimetry, color and paint manufacturing, and restoration, driven by an inexhaustible desire to learn and research new techniques wherever it took him: Spain, Germany, Belgium, and France. This journey led him to prestigious institutions such as the Van Der Kelen-Logelain Superior Painting Institute in Brussels and Les Ateliers du Beaucet in France. Even more significant, however, were his numerous study trips, which allowed him to immerse himself in the craft traditions of various countries across different continents. He also collaborated with other leading European artisans, such as Vincent Tripard, with whom he worked on recovering and applying natural earth pigments in Roussillon, France, and Ignacio Gárate Rojas, a leading expert in lime and plaster, with whom he collaborated for years on compiling his widely recognized manuals.
Luis runs his workshop in the heart of Madrid, specializing in hand-crafted stucco and traditional plaster and lime coatings, as well as decorative painting. He uses self-made materials, always relying on natural pigments—particularly mineral-based earth pigments, of which he holds a substantial collection. Through this, he counters the progressive standardization of colors in contemporary global construction, a trend driven by the dominance of industrial pigments sold by only a handful of multinationals, with the resulting loss of cultural and chromatic richness. He is a staunch advocate of the idea that true modernity lies in working with our immense heritage using time-tested ancestral techniques and materials, while deeply researching the “natural” chemistry derived from empirical craft. Consequently, he works to recover traditional pigment mines, lime, plaster, and other traditional products such as gums, resins, oils, and starches.
Metal and Glasswork Category
Winner: Anna Santolaria
Master stained-glass artist Anna Santolaria Tura founded the Can Pinyonaire stained-glass workshop in 2013, located in the heart of Girona's old quarter. She combined her practical training in the trade at the J. M. Bonet workshop and the Glass Center Foundation (Fundación Centro del Vidrio), both in Barcelona, with studies in Fine Arts at the University of Barcelona and Stained Glass Conservation at the University of York.
She specializes in both the conservation and restoration of stained glass and the creation of new works—using her own designs, collaborating with artists from other disciplines, or replicating existing compositions—always employing traditional stained glass techniques.
Find full details about the winners at the following link.
- Description of the winners, by the Richard H. Driehaus Building Arts Awards.
This article was written by Fabian Dejtiar. The translation is powered by AI.
