Press
Release No.2002-94
2002 UNESCO PRIZE
FOR ARCHITECTURE
TO BE PRESENTED IN VENICE
Paris, November 28 - Three young
graduate architects of Italy's Genoa University - Erika Bisio,
Giulia Carpeneto and Irene Carpeneto - will be presented with
this year's UNESCO Prize for Architecture at a ceremony on December
2 at UNESCO's Venice Office (7 p.m. at the Palazzo Zorzi).
The $7,000 prize was awarded on
the recommendation of an international jury at the 21st Congress
of the International Union of Architects (UIA) which was held
in Berlin in July and focused on the subject of "Resource
Architecture." The aim of this year's prize was to explore
sustainable ways to revive urban wastelands, with particular attention
to the interests of residents and energy conservation.
The subject of the competition
was the restoration of part of Berlin's Mitte neighbourhood, which
contains extensive wasteland belonging to the national railway
company. The site, near the city's new central station, is bordered
by a main road, a former station now a modern art museum, a canal,
docks and old railway sidings. The way this enclave is handled
should give a new image to the city centre.
The competition, sponsored by
UNESCO, was open to young architects from all over the world and
organized by the Association of German Architects' (BDA) and the
Association of German Landscape Architects' (BDLA), with the approval
of the UIA.
The prize-giving ceremony in Venice
will be attended by outgoing UIA President Vassili Sgoutas, Raffaele
Sirica, President of the National Council of Italian Architects,
and Luigi Mifizzi (President) and Giancarlo Ius (Vice-President)
of the UIA's Italian section, as well as Howard Moore, Director
of UNESCO's Venice office.
Ahead of the ceremony, from 3.30
- 6.30 p.m, a round-table will be held on the theme of "Social
and Spatial Cohesion in Historic Cities: Towards an Ethical and
Sustainable Revitalization of Inner Cities." Taking part
will be Said Mouline, Director of the school of architecture of
Rabat (Morocco), Xavier Casanovas, an expert on Cuba's historic
cities, French architect Max Boisrobert, who has worked on the
rehabilitation of Sidon (Lebanon), Giovanni Campéol, chief
scientist of UNESCO's project at Omisalj (Croatia), IUA competitions
director Wolf Tochtermann and several Italian participants.
The moderator will be Alain-Charles
Perrot, chief architect for historic buildings in Paris, who has
worked on the rehabilitation of the Garnier opera house (Paris)
and the Moroccan town of Essaouira. The roundtable is part of
the "Urban Development" project of UNESCO's Management
of Social Transformation Programme.
***
Contact at UNESCO's
Bureau of Public Information in Paris
Monique Perrot-Lanaud, tel.: +33 (0)1456 81714 - e-mail: m.perrot@unesco.org
Contact at UNESCO's Venice Office
Rossana Santesso, tel.: +39 (0)41 260 1511 - fax: +39 (0)41 528
9995 - e-mail: roste@unesco.org
