This - the third - edition of the award could be claimed by buildings completed in the last two years. The IHA jury, chaired by Alejandro Saero-Polo, said in a statement that the Hearst Tower represents an innovative approach to the type of skyscraper, is highly functional and energetic and can be used as a prototype for new high-rise buildings in the future.
At the awards ceremony held in Frankfurt Paulskirche, Norman Foster received a check for 50,000 euros, and representatives of the developer, Hearst Corporation, a titanium figurine by sculptor Thomas Demand, conveying the image of a high-rise building as a stack of design documents - a metaphor for the layering and multifunctionality of each skyscraper.
The founder of the award, the Municipality of Frankfurt am Main, supported by the bank DekaBank and the German Architectural Museum DAM, aims to support the further development of the key typology of modern architecture of high-rise buildings, which is equally important from public, urban planning and specific, “user points of view.
Two other media corporation-owned buildings were finalists this year: Renzo Piano's New York Times headquarters and Rem Koolhaas' Beijing Central Television Cultural Center (TVCC), which complements the massive arch of the complex's main building. … In addition to them, the Singaporean residential tower Newton Suites by the WOHA workshop and the Missing Matrix multifunctional complex in Seoul by the Mass Studies bureau reached the final.
The WestendDuo Frankfurt skyscraper by the KSP workshop of Jürgen Engel and Michael Zimmermann was awarded with a special award for the rational use of resources, presented for the first time this year.
An exhibition dedicated to the announcement of the IHA winners has opened at DAM: it displays not only the buildings noted by the jury, but also many other skyscrapers that have been nominated for the award this year.
