Architecture meets the school, Benedetta Tagliabue
The students of the Secondary Schools of Second Grade in Padua, Rovigo and Provinces meet architecture
“For me, architecture is almost like a game” is the theme chosen by architect Benedetta Tagliabue for her meeting with secondary school students from Padua, Rovigo and the surrounding provinces.
Using some of her works as examples, she compares the building to a human being, with its own personality and the consequent need, when making changes, to enhance what already exists, to respect its history and those who have lived in it, emphasising the need to understand the purposes of the new transformations and those that preceded them.
Change, then, is not only architectural, but also a change of personality, and so a grey and introverted space, such as the market in Barcelona, becomes attractive, cheerful, a place of exchange and interaction, drawing in its surroundings into this transformation. ‘Architecture is not limited to the visual dimension, but extends to the dynamic relationship with the environment, with space and with the human context,’ Benedetta Tagliabue concludes her speech with these words.
Benedetta Tagliabue
Internationally renowned architect founder with Enric Miralles (1955-2000) of the international studio EMBT Architects, with offices in Barcelona (HQ), Shanghai, and Paris.
Amongst her most notable works include the New Scottish Parliament Building in Edinburgh, the Santa Caterina Market, the Headquarters of Gas Natural Fenosa and the Diagonal Mar Park in Barcelona, the Spanish Pavilion for World Expo Shanghai 2010 (winner of the prestigious RIBA Best International Building 2011 Award), the Kálida Sant Pau Centre in Barcelona – Part of the Maggie’s Centres Intl Network (within the grounds of the modernist Hospital Sant Pau). In 2021, she inaugurated the Church and Parish Complex San Giacomo Apóstolo in Ferrara (awarded with the Dedalo Minosse International Prize 2022).
She combines her professional work with teaching at international schools and universities. She is a visiting professor at Harvard University, Columbia University and ETSAB in Barcelona, regularly lecturing at prestigious architecture forums and universities. In 2004 she received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Edinburgh Napier University, Scotland.
Her work received more than 100 international awards and citations for design excellence, including the Catalan National Prize in 2002, the RIBA Stirling Prize in 2005, the National Spanish Prize in 2006, the City of Barcelona Prize in 2005 and 2009, FAD Prizes in 2000, 2003, 2007 and 2020, WAF Prizes in 2010 and 2011, EU Mies Award nomination in 2022, the Piranesi Prix de Rome Award in 2021, the Dedalo Minosse Award in 2022, the Plan Awards in 2022, the Chicago Athenaeum Award in 2012 and 2022.
She received the RIBA Jencks Award in 2013 and the Sant Jordi Cross awarded by the Generalitat de Catalunya in 2019 for the excellence of her professional architectural practice worldwide. In 2021 at the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona, she received the Leadership Award 2021 for contributing to globally disseminating sustainable and humane city models. The same year in Rome, she received the award for her career achievement with the Piranesi Prix de Rome 2020.
In June 2022, Benedetta received a nomination by Pope Francis for her professional merits as a new member of the Order of the Virtuosi Academy at the Pantheon (Rome), which aims to encourage and increase the research and practice of the humanities, visual arts, music, and architecture. Furthermore, in September 2022, she was awarded the architecture medal Prix Le Soufaché 2022 granted by l’Académie d’Architecture (Paris), and recently, she received the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture 2023 Prize by Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine (Paris).
Benedetta participates as a juror in the most prestigious international awards, such as the Pritzker Architecture Prize (since 2014), the Princesa de Asturias de las Artes (2011–2022), the Loewe Craft Prize, RIBA Jencks Awards, RIBA Stirling Prize.
She is the founder and president of Fundació Enric Miralles, whose aim is to promote experimental architecture in the spirit of her late husband and partner, Enric Miralles.
During 2021 together with Joan Roig, she curated the Homage to Miralles, exhibiting his work in Barcelona’s most iconic venues: the Saló del Tinell, the Santa Mónica Cultural Centre, the Disseny Hub, the ETSAB and the Fundació Enric Miralles itself, as well as organising lectures at the COAC.
