The UNESCO Office in Afghanistan announced today the grand prize winner and four runner-up teams in the Bamiyan Cultural Centre Design Competition. Launched last November, the single-stage competition invited architects worldwide to propose designs for a cultural center in the Bamiyan Valley of Afghanistan that would contribute to the country's gradual process of reconciliation, restoring peace, and economic redevelopment after decades of political conflict.
In addition to complementing the physical and historical landscape of Bamiyan, the new Bamiyan Cultural Centre will be built as an emblem of heritage preservation, cross-cultural exchange, and strengthening cultural identity.
Out of 1,070 submissions from 117 countries, the seven-member Jury selected "Descriptive Memory: The Eternal Presence of Absence" by Carlos Nahuel Recabarren, Manuel Alberto Martinez Catalan, and Franco Morero from Argentina as the winning proposal, with a cash prize of US$25,000. The Jury included Elizabeth O’Donnell, Acting Dean of The Cooper Union; Ajmal Maiwandi, CEO of Aga Khan Trust for Culture in Afghanistan; and Cameron Sinclair, Executive Director of the Jolie-Pitt Foundation and Architecture for Humanity co-founder. Afghan President H.E. Ashraf Ghani also expressed his endorsement of the design and the competition's mission.
The winning team's project description states: “The Bamiyan Cultural Centre seeks to create a new vital center for communicating and sharing ideas. Therefore, our proposal tries to create not an object-building but rather a meeting place; a system of negative spaces where the impressive landscape of the Buddha Cliffs intertwine with the rich cultural activity that the center will foster."
Above: "Descriptive Memory: The Eternal Presence of Absence" by Carlos Nahuel Recabarren, Manuel Alberto Martinez Catalan, and Franco Morero
"The Bamiyan Cultural Centre then is not a built but rather ‘found’ or ‘discovered’ by carving it out of the ground.", the description continues. "This primordial architectural strategy creates a minimal impact building that fully integrates into the landscape, takes advantage of thermal inertia and insulation of the ground and gives a nod to the ancient local building traditions.”
The Jury also awarded US$8,000 to four runner-up teams:
BCC2009: Ahmet Balkan, Emre Bozatli | Turkey
BCC002022 : Noel Dominguez, Zoe Salvaire, Agathe Culot, Anna Kampmann, Alexandre Ferron from Noel Dominguez Architecte – NDA | France
BCC004104: Costas Nicolaou, Constantinos Marcou | Cyprus
BCC003532: Graham Baldwin, Alessandra Covini | The Netherlands
In partnership with the Afghan Ministry of Information and Culture and the Republic of Korea, UNESCO in Afghanistan will realize the Bamiyan Cultural Centre in a prominent location near the World Heritage property of the Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of Bamiyan. Implentation of the Centre begins immediately, and is reportedly scheduled for completion within 24 months on a US$2.5 million budget.
All competition entries will also be available to view online on UNESCO Afghanistan’s website starting in mid-March.
More images in the thumbnails below.
2 Comments
Dear Community,
In response to the unfair and unprofessional decision of Jury to select the winner and runner-ups in this competition, on 18 February 2015, we hereby officially complain, to the respectable organizers of this competition. Regarding the competition brief, many criterion and important facts have been neglected and ignored by the Jury members, and their final decision shocked most of us, as professionals. We believe, it is unethical to call the professional architects from all over the world, to put their energy, time, money and give their free ideas; and in response to their effort Jury decide to declare projects for winner, which seem to neglect many points and criteria mentioned in brief.
We believe, and have seen definitely in our professional lives, even if all the entries lack essential needs of a competition, there must no winner be announced. In that case Jury declare the most reliable projects, and ask for further works in 2nd and even 3rd round.
Too sign the petition use link below.
http://bit.ly/1Fb4oyQ
wait when did Cameron Sinclair become Executive Director of the Jolie-Pitt Foundation?
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