The spanish Pritzker prize
With almost three decades of work behind them, it is yesterday afternoon, March 1st, 2017, when the work of Rafael Aranda, Ramón Vilalta and Carme Pigem receives the Pritzker Prize.
This award is the most important worldwide in the field of architecture and has been awarded to the firm RCR Arquitectes, integrated by the trio previously named. 1996 was Rafael Moneo who won the same award. Neither before nor after has any other Spaniard been decorated with such honors.
All of them, very humbly, have revealed and agreed that, in their opinion, the Pritzker also deserved the late Enric Miralles (July 2000) This trio, originally from the Pyrenees villages of Girona Olot and Vic, and relatively humble families, explain that not forgetting where they come from and how far they want to go helps them not to lose their balance. They started building in their home villages and explain: “When you live in a village you have to have clear what brings what you build.
You stumble over it every day. It becomes your conscience. Without a doubt, these beginnings and the fact that they did not leave Olot (34,000 inhabitants) has helped them to get to where they are today.
For them, the only architecture that exists is “the one that contributes to physical and spiritual well-being” without forgetting, of course, beauty, as they say, is fundamental for everything in life.
Pritzker, this time awarded the RCR Arquitectes studio, opens a new window on the world of recognition of architecture as the art that it is. The trio, who have worked from the beginning the roots of man, understands that art must be present in everyday lives but without having to give up the aesthetics of the place
They have traveled and discovered the world, and instead of moving away from their roots, for them the most precious, they have preferred to enjoy them and embellish them with their art. For the first time in the history of architecture, Pritzker coincides with this thinking and rewards them for it.
Thank you and congratulations to all three of you for your wonderful art!
