World Architecture Festival

International media group Emap has formally announced the launch of the World Architecture Festival (WAF), an annual event which will celebrate the work, concerns and aspirations of the international architectural community. The Festival, which will take place in Barcelona, Spain over three days, from 22 - 24 October 2008, will include the biggest architectural awards programme in the world. The Festival venue is the Centre Convencions Internacional Barcelona (CCIB).

The Awards

At the heart of the festival is the largest architectural awards programme in the world. The Awards will showcase, compare and contrast an outstanding range of completed buildings created by a profession which has always looked beyond national borders to the wider world of architectural culture.

Headed by Lord (Norman) Foster, the international judging panels will comprise architects, allied professionals, clients and critics, including a “super-jury”, who will decide the ‘best in show’ prize – the first architectural ‘Prix de Barcelona’. Please see notes to editors for full jury list.

Entries will be accepted from April 2008, with a closing date at the end of June. Shortlisting will be carried out by an international jury during July 2008. At this stage, 16 buildings will be shortlisted in each of the competition’s 16 categories (i.e., 256 buildings in total). All shortlisted architects will then present their work live to juries and audiences at the Festival, competing against each other to become category winners.

All entries will be exhibited at the Festival in a huge gallery modelled on the Barcelona grid, and after the Festival all entries will be permanently available on-line, on the WAF website.