Casa Kike in Costa Rica
Wins Prestigious
International
Architecture Award
LONDON.- Casa Kike, a
private house in Cahuita,
Costa Rica by Gianni
Botsford Architects has
scooped the Royal
Institute of British
Architects' (RIBA)
prestigious Lubetkin
Prize, sponsored by
Mercedes-Benz (UK) Ltd
and supported by The
Architectural Review,
for the most outstanding
work of architecture
outside the European
Union by an RIBA member.
The presentation of the
prestigious Lubetkin
Prize formed the climax
of the RIBA National and
International Awards
dinner and ceremony,
held at the London Park
Lane Hilton Hotel
tonight (Friday 27 June
2008), during the London
Festival of
Architecture. Winners of
the RIBA National Awards
and RIBA European Awards
were also announced at
the ceremony.
Speaking about the
building, the Lubetkin
Prize judge and RIBA
President, Sunand Prasad
said:
"The RIBA's Lubetkin
Prize is now in its
third year. Thanks to
the generous sponsorship
of Mercedes Benz, whom
we welcome as our new
partners, we are able to
extend the same scrutiny
to awards outside Europe
as we have long applied
nearer home. This year's
judges visited a gallery
in the United States, a
private house in Costa
Rica and a British High
Commission in Uganda and
survived to report back
to me and a panel of two
other architects – Glenn
Howells and Denise
Bennetts – on what they
had seen. My
congratulations to
Gianni Botsford, whose
house for his father,
shows that sometimes the
best architecture can be
small in scale but big
in architectural
ambition. All the
shortlisted schemes show
how innovative and
inventive RIBA members'
work can be on an
international stage. We
are also grateful for
the continuing support
of our media partners
the Architectural
Review, whose editor
Paul Finch was one of
the creators of this
important international
award."
Casa Kike beat off stiff
competition from two
other outstanding
international buildings,
New British High
Commision, Kampala by
Cullum & Nightingale
Architects and the Akron
Art Museum, Ohio by COOP
HIMMELB(L)AU.
The three shortlisted
buildings were seen by a
visiting jury comprising
Niall McLaughlin,
architect and chair of
the RIBA Awards Group
and Tony Chapman, RIBA
Head of Awards, who
reported to the full
jury which included
architects Sunand
Prasad, RIBA President,
Denise Bennetts and
Glenn Howells.
The prize is named after
the world-renowned
architect Berthold
Lubetkin (1901-1990).
Lubetkin's daughter
Sasha presented the
winning architects with
a unique cast concrete
plaque, based loosely on
her father's design for
the Penguin Pool at
London Zoo, commissioned
by the RIBA and designed
and made by the artist
Petr Weigl.
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