For yet another year, a prestigious panel of experts will judge the entries in the architecture, interior design and end-of-degree project categories of the Tile of Spain Awards, organized by ASCER. At this edition, the jury will be presided by celebrated architect Carlos Ferrater, the president of the very first edition of the Tile of Spain Awards in 2001.
The other members will be made up of architects Fermín Vázquez and Jaime Sanahuja; interior designer Alicia Fernández; the director of Tectónica, Jose María Marzo; and the chairman of the Castellón Architects' Association, Ángel Pitarch.
Details of the jury
Carlos Ferrater (OAB)
Carlos Ferrater holds a PhD in architecture. He is the professor of architectural project design at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia and the director of the Cátedra Blanca programme in Barcelona. In 2009, he was singled out to receive the National Architecture Award by the Spanish Ministry of Housing for his professional career. He has been a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) since 2011 and he is an academician-elect of the Real Academia de Belles Arts de Sant Jordi, as well as receiving an honorary doctoral degree from the University of Trieste.
In 2006, Carlos Ferrater, Xavier Martí, Lucía Ferrater and Borja Ferrater founded the Office of Architecture in Barcelona (OAB), with Núria Ayala as its project director. Carlos Ferrater has won five FAD Awards, the 1999 and 2008 City of Barcelona Award, and the 2005 Brunel International Architecture and Engineering Award. He has been a finalist for the Mies van der Rohe Award on four occasions, and he was recently awarded the Gold Medal for Fine Arts.
Carlos Ferrater and OAB studio are experts in Spanish ceramic tiles, and several projects by the studio made a big impact at previous editions of the ASCER Tile of Spain Awards. The most emblematic is Paseo de Poniente, Benidorm's waterfront promenade, whose round pavers and prominent use of colour earned him first prize in the architecture category in 2009. At the 17th edition, the award in the interior design category went to "Seafront house", a project by Xavier Martí and Lucía Ferrater, while "Torres Brothers' Restaurant" was a finalist in the same category.
Fermín Vázquez (b720)
Fermín Vázquez has been a co-director of b720 Architects, with Ana Bassat, since its creation in 1997. Over the last 20 years, he has designed some of Spain's most outstanding architectural projects. In addition to the numerous international awards that he has received, his work has featured in publications and at international exhibitions in places like the Pompidou Centre in Paris or the MOMA in New York. He has been chosen as a partner by some of the world's most eminent architects to work on trailblazing projects in Spain.
Fermín Vázquez combines his work as an architect with teaching. He has taught at the School of Architecture in Barcelona, at the École d'Architecture et de Paysage in Bordeaux and at Madrid's Universidad Europea, as well as giving courses and conferences at universities and other centres worldwide. At present, he teaches at IE School of Architecture in Madrid. He regularly publishes articles in international architectural journals and other publications.
Jaime Sanahuja (Sanahuja & Partners)
Jaime Sanahuja was awarded a PhD in architecture by the Polytechnic University of Valencia's School of Architecture (ETSA). He started working as an architect in the late 1980s in Castellón, and now he heads Sanahuja&Partners architects' studio. Since 2006, he has combined his work as an architect with teaching activities as an associate lecturer at ETSA's architectural projects department and with research work at Arquitectura Moderna Española. He has given conferences at various different international universities and at technical forums, mainly on the subject of renovation. Some of his most outstanding work includes projects in conjunction with Carlos Ferrater and ADI Arquitectura in Castellón; namely, CEEI business centre, the head office of IMPIVA (the Valencia Institute for SMEs), the auditorium and the convention centre. Mention must also be made of tenders like Sant Joan de Déu Psychiatric Hospital and Multipurpose Centre in Sant Boi (Barcelona), the head offices of Cajamar savings bank in Castellón, the head offices of Verne in Alicante, Mediterrània residential complex in Palma de Mallorca, and the recently completed library of the Instituto Cervantes in Paris.
José Mª Marzo (Tectónica)
José María Marzo directs Tectónica: an ambitious initiative for the dissemination of information on works of architecture, seen in their entirety from the planning stage through to the project execution phase, so that the wide variety of different professionals who work in this field can find exactly what they seek, whether it is a complex specific building technique, an ideal finishing material or contact with another professional. The magazine was founded in 1996, when very little information on architecture and building was published in Spain and the meagre amount that existed was hard to find. Tectónica soon became a leading publication in this field, organized in the form of a collection of technical monographs.
Now, 25 years later, Tectónica continues to perform this same function in today's very different digital world on its new online platform: tectonica.archi
Alicia Fernández (Alicia Fernández Interiorismo)
Alicia Fernández Sagrera (Barcelona, 1957) graduated in art history at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, before training as an interior designer at IADE. At her studio, she has worked for private clients and big corporations, mainly in Barcelona, the Costa Brava, Madrid and the Philippines. Her work has been featured in interior design and lifestyle articles and publications, including Arquitectura y Diseño, Interiores and El País Semanal.
Ángel Pitarch (CTAC)
Ángel Pitarch graduated in building surveying (1993) and architecture (1997) and, in 1999, he was awarded an M.A. in architectural conservation and heritage by the Polytechnic University of Valencia. He is currently the chairman of the Castellón Architects' Association. He combines his work as an architect with teaching, initially as a lecturer at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, where he started working in 2000/2001. Since 2005, he has taught at Universitat Jaume I, where he lectures in building surveying and on the master's degree in energy efficiency and sustainability. The vice-director of the School of Technology and Experimental Science, he is also responsible for the degree in building surveying. Pitarch is the director of ASCER's Aula Cerámica programme at Universitat Jaume I. He heads the Circular Architecture programme, run as a result of a collaboration agreement between Universitat Jaume I, the Valencia Regional Government's Second Vice-Presidential Office, and the Regional Ministry for Housing and Bioclimatic Architecture. His research activities revolve around building materials, in particular ceramic wall coverings, sustainable conglomerates, and architectural heritage.
The Tile of Spain Awards
The Tile of Spain Awards have a total monetary prize of €35,000, split among its three categories. The two main ones, architecture and interior design, each have an award of €15,000. The jury can also award special mentions for all three categories. The third category, end-of-degree projects, is directed at students of architecture and it has a monetary prize of €5,000. In the three categories, the entrants and the entered projects can be from Spain or abroad. The only requirement is for the entries to feature Spanish ceramic tiles in the formal part of the project.
Full information on this 20th edition, including the entry rules and entry form to register, can be found on www.tileofspainawards.com
This edition of the awards is sponsored by ICEX España Exportación e Inversiones and Endesa.
Award dates and entry information
Deadline for entries: October 28th 2021.
Jury's decision: The week of November 15th
Prize-giving ceremony: CEVISAMA 2022.
Entry rules and registration: www.tileofspainawards.com