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Guest country: Portugal �|

Text: José An. Montero

Photographs: Diana Ruiz Mendoza and Evelyn Mardomingo

It was about nine o'clock at night when the president of the Demarcation in Cuenca of the College of Architects of Castilla-La Mancha, Miguel Ángel Redondo, had to announce that the jury had not yet reached an agreement on the candidate winner of the National Prize of Architecture 2019. Finally the consensus arrived .. About 21.30 the jury left the Cuenca Torner after intense deliberations and while the Director General of Architecture of the Ministry of Development made public the ruling in the company of the Portuguese Ambassador at the National Tourism Parador of Cuenca, Minister Ábalos proceeded to disseminate it on the networks.

For the first time in the ninety years of National Architecture Awards, the prize has not fallen to a Spanish architect, but to the Portuguese Álvaro Siza Vieira, considered the most important of contemporary Portuguese architects and author of reference buildings in Spain as the Zaida Building in Granada, the Rectorship of the UA in Alicante or Social Housing in Cádiz.

It will not be a prize without controversy, but Siza is considered as a teacher by several generations of Spanish and Portuguese architects, because his influence has been and is very prominent in both countries.

This edition will mark a turning point in the trajectory of the future of these awards, because in addition to being awarded for the first time to a non-Spanish architect, it was also the first time that the jury did not meet in Madrid, but in Cuenca, in the framework of the II International Architecture Congress, “Art, City, Landscape�, which has had Portugal as a guest country, which highlights the interest and mutual influences, and demonstrating once again that ideas do not understand borders.

The jury's decision of the National Architecture Prize was delayed for almost twelve hours, which prevented it from being announced at the scheduled time.

This was not an obstacle for the act to be a great celebration of architecture, bringing together great Spanish and Portuguese architects, Spanish representatives ... and Portuguese.

These showed that the first step to make credible policies against depopulation is to make an effort on the part of everyone to decentralize this type of national events.

This was understood by all present, who during the congress interventions have stressed the great potential of contemporary architecture to transform and create new reference spaces in the so-called Empty Spain.

A claim to which Christina Rosenvinge gave a symbolic voice during the ceremony held at the Antonio Pérez de Cuenca Foundation.

It was the first time, but there will be many.

There must be.

Source: José An. Montero