The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has been showing the work of the 2016 recipient of the Royal Gold Medal and an exhibition from the 2015 RIBA President’s Medals Student Awards, with Silver, Bronze and Dissertation Medals.
The display of models of many of Dame Zaha Hadid’s designs demonstrate why she was the worthy winner of the 2016 Royal Gold Medal for Architecture from the RIBA with her innovative architecture. The models illustrate projects past and present, showing how her work has developed and include the Rosenthal Centre for Contemporary Art, Cincinnati (1997-2003), the Ordrupgaard Museum Extension, Copenhagen (2001-2005), the Bergisel Ski Jump (1999-2002), the Galaxy SOHO, Beijing (2008-2012), the Riverside Museum, Glasgow (2004-2011), the Guangzhou Opera House, Beijing (2008-2012) and the Dominion Office Building, Moscow (2012-2015) with a video of the ROCA London Gallery at Imperial Wharf (2009-2011. Current projects on show include the Opus Tower in Dubai (2012- ), 1000 Museum in Miami (2015-) and the star-like Beijing New Airport Terminal (2011-2019).
For the 2015 RIBA President’s Medals Student Awards, nominations were sought from 340 Schools of Architecture in 65 countries. The selection on display shows the talent that exists across the world.
There are subtle links in several of the projects with the exhibition “Creation from Catastrophe” also at the RIBA as they propose designs to support economic and environmental sustainability, community development and to play a role in conflict zones. Jong Min Park asks the question “Can Architecture be Neutral in a Conflict Zone”, with a project in the West Sea around Korea where the traditional fishing and pottery industries, as well as local ecology, suffer from the ongoing conflict between North and South Korea. Artificial islands are created from pottery for the joint fishing communities of both sides of Korea with questions about why violence is all too often dealt with by yet more violence while the community suffers.
Alastair Wood with “Lofoten Seasonal Fishery”, takes inspiration from Lofoten’s traditional architecture with his architectural proposal to regenerate the declining fishing industry in the Lofoten islands by bringing back some of the processes that have moved away, strengthening the community and creating a marketplace where fish can be sold to the public and Andrew Chard aims to halt the decline of the Piraeus Port of Greece with a “Lost Dockland” where the ancient boats of Greece will be recreated, displayed and used in the waterways, thus creating a boat-building and tourist industry to replace the declining commercial activity in the port.
Built on stilts on the coastline of Florida, Boon Yik Chung’s “Space as a Third Teacher” creates a new typology for a classroom for a Montessori School where the architecture becomes part of the learning experience – an experimental and loosely defined architecture that is also quite traditional, in which the learning space has to be negotiated and interpreted.
The projects on display succeed in the Medals’ aims of promoting excellence in the study of architecture and encouraging architectural debate worldwide. The judges must have had a herculean task to select the winners, who may perhaps be potential winners of RIBA Gold Medals in years to come, and reinforce the question explored in “Creation from Catastrophe” – how can architecture support communities and make the world a better place.
