THE EUROPEAN CENTRE ANNOUNCES A CALL FOR NOMINATIONS FOR THE FIRST EUROPEAN ARCHITECTURE PRIZE

In 2010, The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies together with The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design will inaugurate the first European Architecture Prize.
The European Architecture Prize will be given annually to any living architect whose built work exemplifies the highest ideals of European civilization and embodies vision, commitment, and a profound respect for humanity and for the social and physical environment.
Nominations are encouraged from all nations inside the European Union, as well as non EU member states including Norway, Switzerland, Russia, Turkey, Liechtenstein, Albania, Monaco, Andorra, Serbia, Montenegro, Georgia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Moldavia, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Canary Islands, Faeroe Islands, San Marino, and Iceland.
Nominations are invited from architects, writers, critics, academicians, government officials, architectural societies and associations, museums, developers, corporate executives, professionals in the building industry, and the general public at large—and any individual who has an interest in advancing great architecture.
The prize is awarded irrespectively of European nationality, gender, race, creed, or ideology.
Candidates for the Prize are drawn from the professions of architecture, landscape architecture or urban planning who have profoundly impacted or influenced contemporary architecture philosophy and design ideas today.
Nominations for this first Prize are invited through August 1, 2010.
Nominations are submitted to the Chairman of The European Centre in Dublin, Ireland for consideration by the jury of The European Architecture Prize.
Details for the submission process are available at The European Centre's website at www.europeanarch.eu.
"This is an important international prize, states Christian K. Narkiewicz-Laine, Finnish Architect and Critic and Museum President of The Chicago Athenaeum, "that has been established to continue and celebrate Europe’s ongoing contribution to world history and culture and to encourage our present generation of practitioners to embrace the true art of architecture together with its humanistic and social pursuits in order to make our European cities and nations true centers of advanced culture and civilization."
"The ancient Greeks," Mr. Narkiewicz-Laine continues, "considered architecture to be the 'first art,' which is the literal meaning of the word and which gave birth to a profession."
“Throughout the centuries, Mr. Narkiewicz-Laine adds, “Europe has given the world its most important practitioners from Phidias, Vitriuvius, Michelangelo, da Vinci, and Palladio to the early modern masters, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and Eliel and Eero Saarinen. Those architects have developed numerous philosophies and visionary approaches to building, engineering, and planning that have grown from the need to invent or express a time and place in Europe’s rich history. Classicism, Byzantine, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Beaux-Arts, Constructivism, Art Deco, DeStijl, and Modernism have all resulted as an expression of clearly stated European values and ideals and have given form and shape to the most famous cities in the world.”
The European Architecture Prize will be announced in fall 2010 and will be officially presented at The City and the World: Madrid Symposium November 4-7, 2010.
For more information, contact Ira Livaidioti, Director of Adminstration/Marketing, The European Centre in Athens at +30/210 342 8511 or ira@europeanarch.eu.
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