RIBA Jencks Prize 2009 : Information + Links

16 Nov 2009 CHARLES CORREA TO RECEIVE 2009 RIBA JENCKS AWARD Award presentation and talk by Charles Correa on Tuesday 24 November 18.30 Tickets available to the public The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is pleased to announce that Charles Correa is to receive the 2009 RIBA Jencks Award. The RIBA Jencks Award is given annually to an individual who has recently made a major contribution simultaneously to the theory and practice of architecture internationally. The presentation of the award will take place at the RIBA on Tuesday 24 November and is immediately followed by a public lecture by Charles Correa entitled 'Theory into Practice Jencks Award: Visions Built 2009'. Charles Correa was last given an award by the RIBA in 1984 when he received the Royal Gold Medal at Hampton Court Palace, presented by the HRH The Prince of Wales. Champalimaud Foundation Cancer Centre: Charles Correa is an architect, planner, activist and theoretician. His work covers a wide range - from the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial at the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, the Jawahar Kala Kendra in Jaipur and the State Assembly for Madhya Pradesh, to housing projects and townships in Delhi, Bombay, Ahmedabad and Bangalore. He was Chief Architect for 'Navi Mumbai' the new city of 2 million people across the harbour from Bombay, and was appointed by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi as the first Chairman of the National Commission on Urbanisation. Correa has taught at several universities, both in India and abroad, and currently spends part of his time at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he is Farwell Bemis Professor in the School of Architecture and Planning. He has been awarded honours including the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, the Praemium Imperiale of Japan, the UIA Gold Medal and the Royal Gold Medal. Charles Jencks commented on Charles Correa winning the award: "For over fifty years Charles Correa has established a very convincing dialogue between his theory and practice of architecture, each side of the equation having informed the other in a clear progression of ideas. In succinct and limpid prose he has explored themes that other architects have not addressed recently, especially the relation of architecture to sacred space and contemporary metaphysics. Attentive to the affinities between the concepts of zero, Vedic thought and notions of the void (or plenum vacuum in physics), he has translated these ideas into striking architectural forms. Three superb works of the early 1990s, in Jaipur, Pune and Bhopol, show what a new cosmic architecture can be, and one that doesn't shy away from representation. Correa's work on social housing, courtyard housing and squatters 'unhousing' is equally profound and relevant for today. Often translating architectural concepts into a larger landscape urbanism, his example bears comparison with that of Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn both of whom he admires and criticizes. Placed midway between abstract concepts and ambiguity his design and writing address the fundamental questions which are all too often evaded in architecture and thought today." Previous recipients of the prestigious Jencks Award include Zaha Hadid; Foreign Office Architects; Peter Eisenman; Cecil Balmond and Wold Prix.