Junya Ishigami wins the BSI Swiss Architectural Award

Japanese architectJunya Ishigami has won the BSI Swiss Architectural Award for the Kanagawa Institute of Technology Workshop (Kanagawa, Japan, 2004-2008), the “House with Plants” in Tokyo (2010-2012) and the Japanese Pavilion at the 11th International Architecture Exhibition of the Biennale in Venice (2008).

The award, presented every two years by an international panel of judges, was presented for the fifth time this year by a panel chaired by Mario Botta (Switzerland) and composed of Jean-Louis Cohen (Francia), Marc Collomb (Switzerland – director of the Architecture Academy in Mendrisio), Bruno Reichlin (Switzerland) and José María Sánchez García (Spain). The judges looked at works by 28 architects nominated by a committee of advisors composed of 13 prominent architects from various parts of the world, including Pritzker Prize winners Toyo Ito (Japan) and Paulo Mendes da Rocha (Brazil), who also won a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition at the Biennale in Venice, entitled REPORTING FROM THE FRONT.

The jury of the BSI Swiss Architectural Award unanimously awarded the prize to Junya Ishigami for his ability to design buildings offering substantial answers to specific functional needs which are also “spaces of great beauty and serenity which impose themselves with unusual iconic strength ” and “ a promising relationship with the vegetal world, interpreted and presented in ever-changing ways ”:

(Agnese Bifulco)

Images courtesy of BSI Swiss Architectural Award

www.bsi-swissarchitecturalaward.ch

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