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The Alvar Aalto Medal 2020 was announced virtually on March 16 at 10:00 on the Alvar Aalto Foundation´s YouTube Channel. The India based architecture firm “Studio Mumbai” and his director Ar. Bijoy Jain has selected as the winners of this medal.
Studio Mumbai’s skill that fusions architecture and craftsmanship reflects in their works by understandings about geography, climatic and social characteristic, insightful considerations to the work became fascinating elements for the selection.
“The work of Studio Mumbai is grounded on several values crucial for Alvar Aalto. Within this perspective, design touches all elements of a project. The buildings created by Bijoy Jain and his collaborators display a strong connection to a specific place and landscape: geographical, climatic and social particularities of the environment around the architectures are considered. In the creative process the conversation between architect and craftsmen takes place face to face; and it is from their combined perspective and mutual work, that the project takes shape. This special integration retains the human scale of the process and object of production,” states Jan Utzon, the chairman of the jury, in the jury report.
“The dominant “western” consumerist society of the modern era seems to be progressively losing any holistic conception of architecture, as adopted by Aalto. The example of Studio Mumbai as a successful programmatic collaboration between architect and craftsmen leads one to hope that this local condition can be re-integrated within future architectural production throughout the world” he stated in continuation.
The jury members 2020 were architect Enrique Sobejano from Spain, the civil engineer and urban planner Gunnar Heipp from Switzerland, and the architects Pia Ilonen and Anu Puustinen from Finland. Architect Jan Utzon from Denmark was the jury chair.
Sources & Credits
Firm Alvar Aalto
YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/FmM7DAPzPpA