Catalogue of the 2022 Architecture Award

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Order: info@heliarch.gr
ISBN: 978-618-83352-7-1
Pages: 128
Dimensions: 23×33 cm
Edited by: Elias Constantopoulos, Theodora Alexandri
Catalogue Design & Production Management: FINE DESIGN

INTRODUCTION (extract)

What does an Architecture Award signify? This is the question posed by the Hellenic Institute of Architecture, once again in 2022. 22 years after the institution of the first Architectural Awards.

At the first conferment of the awards in 2000 the then President of the Institute, prof. Nikos Kalogeras noted that ‘the main purpose of an award means the acknowledgement of the quality of an achievement in the field it refers to, which means not only rewarding the result, but also the effort of all those who contributed to its materialization’, and that ‘the fact that the award is given to the buildings and not to one only of their creators, constitutes and additional reason for the jurors to visit them and discuss with those who live in them’. 

The awards were attributed to three categories of built projects, I. Private residences, II. Public buildings, III. Buildings of Professional and Public Use, while Il and III were unified in 2013, and in 2017 Refurbishments was added, which comprised an already growing field of interest for architects.

The selection criteria are stated as follows:
“The aim of the awards is to highlight and promote those contemporary architectural realizations whose constructional, typological, and morphological character as well as their integration into the environment compose a creative proposal with innovative elements, within the context of the existing built environment.” At the dawn of the third millennium, the establishment of the Awards aimed to elevate the standard of completed architectural works in terms of design, construction, and aesthetics through their promotion in publications, exhibitions, and conferences, within a spirit of healthy competition that would both showcase all entries and highlight the most outstanding ones according to the judgment of each year’s jury.

The findings of each and every previous event remain the same, revealing certain constants of architectural production in Greece, namely, the quantitative and qualitative dominance of private residences, especially country houses, and the almost complete absence of noteworthy public buildings and public urban public space despite the plethora of architectural competitions, most of which have not been realized. This year alone, out of 97 submissions, 54 are private residences, and the rest are buildings of common use and interiors.

It is evident that there is no interest on the part of the state in promoting public projects and that Greek society invests its best in private projects, contrary to other European countries, where public projects are a source of national and regional pride, offering better living conditions to their citizens.

Are there projects that could be considered in this sense exemplary for Greek architecture today and to what end? Aiming for an answer to this question, the Board of Directors of HlA decided that the 2022 Architecture Award should not be divided into different categories, but should be unified into a single one.

Our age seems to oscillate between two examples a spectacular architecture of impressive high quality and budget buildings, and one which has as its priority environmental and social concerns. If the global megalopolises are faced with housing and infrastructure needs, architecture in Greece is faced on the one hand with unprecedented, almost beyond control large-scale interventions to the landscape to facilitate tourism, and on the other with a lack of public urban spaces. 

Among the questions posed by our time, one issue emerges more than ever as a major and central concern in architecture: that of the frame of reference or environment, as context (not in the sense of postmodern contextual formalism).

The issue of context lies at the heart of the rationale developed by the selection committee throughout the process.

This year’s awards differ from those of previous years, particularly with the establishment of the Architecture Award, as the jury members without the option of awarding projects across different programs and categories are obliged to articulate a critical rationale that stands as an exemplary discourse for the current moment.

However, the formulation of criteria despite the usual practice of presenting them before any competitive process does not truly pre-exist, but rather emerges during the act of judgment itself, through the exploration of the intentions and contradictions of the architects, as well as those of the committee members in their attempt to reach a consensus. This rationale is co-formed by, and in dialogue with, the projects submitted.

An architectural project is not assessed merely as an aggregation of the Vitruvian criteria – firmness, commodity, delight-but as a far more complex whole, a muti-factorial venture, as D. Fatouros used to call it. An important tool in this effort, apart from the study of drawings and photographs, is visiting the buildings, experiencing the built and lived-in spaces, and the discussion with the architects, the owners and users. 

We consider this to be the greatest contribution of the HIA Architecture Award, which aims to contribute to a meaningful discussion on architecture today. The unexpected award of the Prize this year equally to two projects, as well as the other distinctions and commendations, is due to the dynamics of such a process.

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