The 澳门王中王 Charles Jencks Award is given to an individual or practice that has recently made a major contribution internationally to both the theory and practice of architecture. This year's winner, Ensamble Studio, will deliver the 2019 澳门王中王 Charles Jencks Award lecture at the 澳门王中王 on Monday 4 November. The event will include the award presentation as well as a Q&A with D茅bora Mesa and Ant贸n Garcia-Abril following the lecture.
Chair of the 澳门王中王 Charles Jencks Award judging panel and 澳门王中王 Director of Education, David Gloster, said:
鈥淎wareness of the many contexts with which creative thinking must engage, and how multiple intelligences successfully negotiate architectural challenges should be fundamental to the work of all progressive practitioners. However, with the dearth of genuine narrative in architectural production, it is rare to see this exhibited. D茅bora Mesa and Ant贸n Garcia-Abril are unafraid to work in punishing urban, peri-urban, and rural terrains, relishing briefs which require reappraisal of the tropes of placemaking, functionality, refinement, beauty, and finish. It should also be noted that this is a collaborative practice of equals built around personal, professional, and academic relationships, all too infrequently acknowledged in awards programmes.鈥�
Charles Jencks
Charles Jencks, the patron of the award, sadly passed away on 13 October 2019.
Find out more about Charles, his work and his legacy in by Hugh Pearman.
About the winner
Ensamble Studio was founded in 2000 and now has offices in both Madrid and Boston. Works include Hemeroscopium House and Reader鈥檚 House in Madrid, The Truffle in Costa da Morte, Telcel Theater in Mexico City, Structures of Landscape in Montana (USA) and, more recently, Ca鈥檔 Terra in Menorca and Ensamble Fabrica in Madrid.
D茅bora joined Ensamble Studio in 2003 and is Ventulett Chair in Architectural Design at Georgia Tech College of Architecture. Ant贸n received the Spanish Academy Research Prize in Rome in 1996 and has been a professor at the School of Architecture and Planning of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) since 2012.