International Architecture Award with the fabulous Dominique Perrault on the jury

The renowned French architect Dominique Perrault and leading Czech architectural historian Zdeněk Lukeš are members of the jury for this year's International Architecture Award. This year, the international network of building materials BigMat announced the award for the fourth time. The main prize for the winning project is 30,000 euros, registration is open from March 15 and will last until June 10.

The competition is exclusively for architects, whose business headquarters are located in one of the five countries participating in the competition, namely Spain, France, Italy, the Czech Republic, as well as in the Walloon region and the capital of Belgium, Brussels. “Architects and architectural firms may submit projects that were completed between January 1, 2005 and December 31, 2012 and are located in the territory of one of the aforementioned states or areas,” said Aleš Štalmach, director of the Czech branch of BigMat, in this context. The announcement of the winners and the award ceremony will take place in November in Granada, Spain.

Initially, the competition will award the so-called national prizes in each participating country. These are funded with an amount of 5,000 euros. The five best projects from each country, including the winning project, will subsequently compete for the Grand Prize of Architects amounting to 30,000 euros. Additionally, the international jury will select a project among the finalists to receive a special award intended for young architects for a work authored by an architect under the age of 40.

We have something to offer, says Czech juror

The renowned Czech architectural historian Zdeněk Lukeš, who will sit on the international jury this year, believes that Czech architects need international comparisons: “It is a very useful confrontation, and every such comparison is a very good thing. International architectural competitions hardly take place here and our architects also do not often participate in such competitions abroad, so every such initiative is very important. Moreover, there is a very high-quality jury here, which includes world-class architecture figures like Dominique Perrault,” Lukeš points out the fact that a member of the jury is the author of buildings such as the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, the Fukoku Tower in Osaka, Japan, or the Olympic Tennis Center in Madrid. Despite the limited opportunity to compare the work of domestic and foreign architects, according to Lukeš, Czech modern architecture has much to offer the world: “Just look at the winning buildings from our Grand Prix of Architecture over the last few years. These are exceptional works, but we also have other projects that for various reasons did not participate in the Grand Prix. I just hope that they will also appear in the International Architecture Award.”

The registration form and all other conditions of the competition are available either directly on the website of the International Architecture Award www.architectureaward.bigmat.com

The international network of independent building materials distributors, BigMat, was established in 1981 in France. Currently, it has branches in five European countries with a total of 800 stores and an annual turnover exceeding 2 billion euros. The Czech branch, BigMat Czech Republic, has been operating in the domestic market for the fourth year and brings together independent Czech distributors of building materials and operators of building supplies.