This year, 343 buildings and projects are nominated for awards at the World Festival of Architecture, which will be held from November 16 to 18 in Berlin. The organizers noted a record number of applications, most of which were from European participants. Architects from 42 countries, both eminent and beginners, who are not yet known outside their homeland, reached the final. Great Britain became the leader in the number of projects included in the short-list. Behind her are Turkey and Australia.
Nominees will be judged in 32 categories in four sections: Completed Projects, Future Projects, Small Projects and Landscape. A special prize will be awarded for the best use of color. All finalists will make presentations of their projects during the festival, which will take place in Berlin from 15 to 17 November. Then the winners will be announced.
Russian participants were mainly noted in the "future projects" section. The shortlist included three projects by Nikita Yavein's studio "Studio 44", which last year won in two nominations at once. This time attention was paid to the competition project of the Historical and Cultural Complex "Post-Castle" in Kaliningrad, the concept of the Museum of Science and Technology in Tomsk, as well as the project of reconstruction of the Zhastar palace in Astana.
Two more Russian participants are represented in the category of competition projects: UNK project with the concept of the Rosatom Pavilion at VDNKh and Arch group with the concept of the Radisson Blu hotel complex at the confluence of the Moskva River and Skhodnya.
Four more conceptual projects of the Russians that reached the final:
Blank Architects with the project of the shopping and entertainment complex "Mitino Park"
Evgeny Gerasimov and partners with the reconstruction project of the Bolshoy Gostiny Dvor in St. Petersburg
KB Strelka + Tsimailo, Lyashenko and Partners + Topotek 1 with the development concept of Novy Arbat
"A-Proekt.k" / Concern "Krost" with the project of the children's educational center "Horoshevskaya Progymnasium"
Three Russian bureaus claim to win with already completed projects. Blank Architects - with a private house in Glogow (Poland), Wowhaus will present its "City Farm" at VDNKh to the jury and festival visitors, and Speech - the Museum of Rural Labor, nominated as a "small project", which was built in the village of Zvizzhi for last year " Archstoyanie ".
Below we present the most striking finalist projects made by foreign architects. The full list of objects that formed the "short list" of the award can be found
here.
Concert hall in the Yordanki quarter, Poland, Torun (completed projects / culture)
Menis arquitectos
Messner Mountain Museum - Corones, Italy (completed projects / culture)
Zaha Hadid Architects
Arcus Center for Social Justice, USA, Kalamazoo (completed projects / higher education and science)
Studio Gang Architects
Investcorp Center for the Middle East, St Anthony's College, University of Oxford, UK, Oxford (completed projects / higher education and research)
Zaha Hadid Architects
Faculty of Fine Arts, University of La Laguna, Spain, Tenerife (completed projects / higher education and science)
gpy arquitectos
Residential building VIA West 57, USA, New York (completed projects / housing)
BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group
Canary Wharf Crossrail Station, UK, London (completed projects / multifunctional use)
Foster + Partners
Cultural Center Montforthaus, Austria, Feldkirch (completed projects / new and old)
Hascher Jehle Architektur
BBVA Bancomer Headquarters, Mexico, Mexico City (Projects / Office)
RSHP - Rogers Sterk Harbor + Partners
"Smart School" in Irkutsk (future projects / education)
CEBRA architecture
Istanbul New Airport (future projects / infrastructure)
Scott Brownrigg + Grimshaw, Nordic, Haptic, Fonksiyon, TAM / Kiklop
Residential complex Canaletto, UK, London (future projects / housing)
UNStudio
