Neolith has unveiled their most ambitious project to date: the ENIGMA restaurant design in collaboration with RCR Arquitectes and P.Llimona. The conceptual restaurant space began with the vision of celebrated Catalan chef Albert Adrià, who wanted to create an "enigmatic” restaurant project reflecting his gastronomy and his career. Albert, together with his sibling Ferran Adrià have transformed the iconic El Bulli restaurant into a culinary research foundation and embarked on more projects since, including tapas bar Tickets and Bar 41 in Barcelona. ENIGMA, described as a “culinary amusement park” represents the new brainchild of the brothers’ dialogue exploring the intersection of food and design.
Your majesties, the Emperor and Empress of Japan; Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso; your excellencies ambassadors and ministers; Tom and Margot Pritzker and members of the Pritzker family; ladies and gentlemen.
Emotions, happiness, pride, humility, respect, responsibility, admiration for those who have gone before us and for those who will receive this award in the future: there is an infinite mixture of many overlapping feelings that we are experiencing now, but the strongest sensation is one of gratitude: To the Pritzker Family, who for years have been generously supporting and bringing attention to architecture, and we ask that they continue to do this.
https://www.archdaily.com/871902/rcr-arquitectes-rafael-aranda-carme-pigem-ramon-vilalta-pritzker-prize-acceptance-speechRafael Aranda, Carme Pigem, and Ramon Vilalta
The winners of the 2017 Pritzker Prize, RCR Arquitectes, has been selected to lead the proposal and design of the Catalan pavilion at the 2018 Venice Biennale. The news was announced yesterday by Santi Vila, Minister of Culture of the Generalitat of Catalonia, during the opening of this year’s Venice Biennale of Art.
The work of the Catalan firm RCR Arquitectes was, until its founders won the 2017 Pritzker Prize this month, little-known worldwide, with appreciation of their projects largely restricted to the few European locations in which they have built and a number of well-informed academic circles. Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem and Ramon Vilalta founded their office in the small town of Olot almost 30 years ago, and most of their work for the past three decades have been built in the surrounding regions of Catalonia. As the Pritzker jury has pointed out, one of their greatest qualities is their ability to show how architects can have "our roots firmly in place and our arms outstretched to the rest of the world." Through the videos presented in this article, it is possible to understand a little more about the work of the office, and more specifically, to appreciate the atmosphere of its built works.
Description via Amazon. According to the essay by Enric Batlle i Durany, the landscape plays a very active role in all of RCRs works. The location is not just an additional aspect in their conception process. It is the physical and metaphysical basis of their work. In this marvellous special issue, full of extraordinary images and stories, a portrait emerges of architects Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem, and Ramón Vilalta that is both intimate and enlightening. It tells about their early years, how they learned from Japan, and gives an overview of recent work. Included are numerous drawings, ink washes, exfoliations, and models made by the office, reflecting both their shared creativity and ongoing dialogues.
The 2017 Pritzker Prize was a surprise to many, awarded to the three founders of RCR Arquitectes, a modest Spanish firm located in the small town of Olot in Catalonia. Many people and critics shared their astonishment at the prize being awarded to three individuals for the first time since the Pritzker Prize began in 1979, including the third female winner, and at the relatively low profile of RCR Arquitectes before March 1st.
Whether this surprise was pleasant or shocking differs from critic to critic, but there nevertheless seems to be a consensus on the jury’s decision to venture further into politics and away from their traditional interest in celebrity architects. As clearly stated in the jury’s citation: “In this day and age, there is an important question that people all over the world are asking, and it is not just about architecture; it is about law, politics, and government as well.” Are they steering the prize in the right, or wrong, direction?
As with many of the Catalan trio's work, the library stands out for its materiality and careful construction, making intense use of transparency and light.
Today, Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem and Ramon Vilalta were named the laureates of the 2017 Pritzker Prize, becoming the first trio of architects to be bestowed the profession’s highest accolade. Working together since 1988 as RCR Arquitectes, the team has tackled a wide range of project types, from libraries to wineries to park designs – many of which are located in their home region of Catalonia, Spain. Continue to see 20 images from their work that exemplify the firm’s outstanding attention to detail and considered use of materiality.
Today, the Pritzker announced Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem and Ramon Vilalta, the three founders of Catalan firm RCR Arquitectes, as the recipients of the 2017 Pritzker Prize. As designers of an architecture that is both stylistically and physically local—RCR Arquitectes’ work is mostly found in Catalonia, although recent projects have taken them to France and Belgium—the firm has established a strong profile in north-eastern Spain and a cult following among academic circles around the world. However, other members of the architectural community might find themselves forced to reach for the nearest search engine. For those people, the following 9 facts will provide the information you need to understand architecture’s newest Pritzker Prize laureates.
Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem and Ramon Vilalta have been named as the laureates of the 2017 Pritzker Prize. Their projects emphasize materiality and craft – considered use of color, transparency (and thereby light) define an oeuvre which ranges from public buildings to houses, a kindergarten and a winery.
The three architects—all of whom are Spanish Catalan and originate from Olot, Girona (where they are all presently based)—have worked collaboratively together as RCR Arquitectes since 1988; they simultaneously graduated in Architecture from ETSAV, the School of Architecture in Valles (Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura del Vallès) a year prior. This 39th incarnation of the Prize represents the first instance in which three architects have been recognized at once, and only the second time—following Rafael Moneo in 1996—that Spanish practitioners have been honored.
Two days ago ArchDaily had the distinct honor to interview Ramon Vilalta, one of the three architects named as 2017 Pritzker Laureates. Vilalta gave us an exclusive insight into history behind his collaboration with Rafael Aranda and Carme Pigem and how their connection to their small hometown of Olot, Spain has influenced a career that has produced exceptional projects by their firm, RCR Arquitectes.
ArchDaily: How did your studio/practice begin? Why did you start quickly after graduating?
Ramon Vilalta: In that sense we were very disciplined people. We finished our degrees quickly and once we were finished we decided to share a studio; we chose to confront architecture by sharing it, and by really sharing it. We each have different personalities – each one has his or her own style but what comes from the chemistry between the three of us makes us special, I think. This was, I feel, a big decision that wasn’t easy at the time.
Opening of the exhibition at Oris House of Architecture / photo Borko Vukosav
Oris House of Architecture gallery in Zagreb, Croatia has been a place of many relevant architectural events since its openning – exhibitions such as Poetry of Boxes by Mathias Klotz, Kohki Hiranuma, Smiljan Radić, BUS:STOP Krumbach and Getting Things Done: Evolution of the Built Environment in Vorarlberg.
Its recent exhibition is that of Catalan studio RCR Arquitectes' works through photographs by the likes of Hisao Suzuki, Pep Sau, Emilia Roia and Marc Checinski.
The results of the 2014 European Prize for Urban Public Space have been announced. The prize organized by the Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB) rewards both the designers and the facilitators (such as councils or community groups) that have contributed to the best urban interventions of the year. The award is given for ingenuity and social impact, regardless of the scale of intervention, meaning that small, relatively unknown practices can rub shoulders with some of the best-known practices in Europe.
See the 2 Joint Winners and 4 Special Mentions after the break
I LIKE is an original series on architecture and spatial intervention, developed in a collaboration between Canal 180 and LIKEarchitects atelier. Diogo Aguiar and Teresa Otto have created a chromatic experiment and spatial exercise--organized by color--that reveals some of the most amazing architectural interventions in the world.
Next week ArchDaily will premier the second installment of I LIKE. Stay tuned!
This week, with the help of our readers, our Architecture City Guide is headed to Barcelona. We recently featured an engaging video where Wiel Arets half jokingly said Barcelona is fantastic but boring. He continued to say as soon as Sagrada Família is finished Barcelona is done; there is nothing left to do there (10:50). Arets can say what he wants about Barcelona supposedly being boring, but our city guide doesn’t reflect this. Barcelona is filled with fantastically expressive architecture that springs from its proud Catalan culture. It was impossible to feature all our readers suggestions in the first go around, and we did not even come close to including some of the most iconic building such as Casa Milà. Thus we are looking to add to our list of 24 in the near future. Further more there are so many fabulous buildings on the drawing board or under construction, i.e. the projects in the @22 district, we’ll most likely be updating this city guide for quite awhile, regardless of Sagrada Família’s completion.
Take a look at our list with the knowledge it is far complete and add to it in the comment section below.
.jpg?1488583403 "Courtesy of Pritzker Prize. Image © Hisao Suzuki")
