The joy of the young people who won the three prizes and got mentions in the 23rd edition of the Clarín SCA National Award for students of architecture was a necessary ray of sunshine on the rainy afternoon of December 5. Under the intense garúa, they excitedly posed for a photo and waited at the MARQ entrance for the celebration planned especially for them to begin.
The contest that Clarín’s ARQ magazine has organized since 2001 with the Central Society of Architects (SCA) aims to bring architecture students from all the universities in the country closer to the experience of competing for the best project. It has the support of the Argentine Federation of Architectural Entities (FADE) and this year had as sponsors Redemption, Shower, Sika y Technal by Hydro Aluminum.
This edition received 61 jobs and had the advice from Marta García Falcó and Carolina Day. He juryintegrated to Fernando Jaime (for Clarín), Roberto Frangella (for the participants), Mario Boscoboinik (for the SCA) and Silvana Parentella (for FADEA) decided to give three prizes and seven mentions without order of merit.
“The work of the jury occurred in a climate of almost total agreement, with subtle differences in some works,” explained Jaime, for whom the level of the first prize is excellent in all aspects. Thus he referred to the building complex in the province of Catamarca, a project of John Ignatius Bechini Marchi, Macarena Garcia and Florence Rochaof Architecture 4 of the South America chair of the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism of the UBA.
“The other two awards, of equal level, are also very good,” he added about the Infrastructure building for the Ansenuza National Park, from Matías Fernández and Constanza Ficetto; and the intermodal transportation system, also for the city of Córdoba, David Andres, Lucas Benitez and Micaela Moran Liendo. Both works are 2023 degree theses from the Mediterranean Workshop of the Faculty of Architecture, Urbanism and Design (FAUD) of the National University of Córdoba.
“In general the topics were in very varied places and provinces. There was work to recycle buildings or recover areas. It is evident that, over the years, the issue of housing was abandoned as a central issue in teaching the architectural project,” Jaime continued.
“This year they were absolutely predominant themes related to the environment, non-urban or suburban issuesparks, wetlands, lagoons and the architecture that is related to this: service and equipment buildings, research centers, ecological tourism infrastructure,” he explained.
“Unfortunately, the good thematic intentions of the majority are still not generally reflected in the architectural developments and proposals, perhaps due to the novelty of the themes,” criticized the jury and continued: “as for representation, there is an overabundance of renders. Above all, in the organization and order of presentations, where much less importance is given to plants and plans in general.”
Celebrate passion and freshness
“This award is important because it is an encouragement to the young generations. It is also a recognition to the teachers of the Architecture workshops who encourage their students to present themselves,” he defined. Rita Comando, president of the SCAat the beginning of the event attended by the winners with their families, the organizers and representatives of the sponsoring companies.
Berto González Montaner, general editor of ARQ, reviewed the history of the award and recalled its origin from the Workshop section of the then Clarín supplement. “Many of those who passed through these pages today are civil servants, they have done very important works or continue to win competitions,” he defined. He also pointed out one of the objectives of the contest: “to train themselves to appear in the competitions and pay attention to the number of issues “They are in the bases and must be complied with.”
Fringe, in turn, valued creativity and criticized the lack of social issues to the detriment of real estate. “I congratulate you because you were interested in what is happening to us in terms of ecology and natural resources. There were works that made a brilliant analysis of the shortcomings but I must say that the architectural response was schematic.” He added in a personal capacity: “if you don’t see the themes in the subjects, I ask you to take care of getting them because they are essential themes that they make for equality.”
Frangella stressed the need to “have passion for what they do and desire to give the best.” Boscoboinik, for his part, emphasized the need to “sustain the good jobs of architecture aside from the topic that it was their lot.”
Jaime, the last jury to speak at the event (because Parentella was absent), made only one request to the students: “take advantage of this freshness and this youth that they have now, over time is very difficult to maintain.” In closing, the general editor of Clarín’s ARQ magazine told the university students present: “Thank you for having entered this league, you will be the ones who will be thinking about the city that is coming.”