Moma Establishes $200,000 Ambasz Prize For“Nature-Reconciled” Architecture

(MENAFN- USA Art News) The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York has introduced an annual grant totaling $200,000, known as the Ambasz-MoMA Prize, to recognize architecture projects that demonstrate a“nature-reconciled” approach. The award includes a $100,000 cash prize for the winning architect and an additional $100,000 allocated to a nonprofit organization for planting trees in the project client's name.

This prize is named in acknowledgment of a significant gift from the Legacy Emilio Ambasz Foundation. It seeks to honor projects worldwide from the past three decades that, as described by the museum in press materials,“repair architecture's relationship with nature.” MoMA highlights it as the largest award for a single project in architecture. The $100,000 cash component matches the Pritzker Architecture Prize, while the full $200,000 award equals the Driehaus Prize.

Argentinian-American architect Emilio Ambasz has a long-standing association with MoMA, having served as a curator in its architecture and design department from 1968 to 1976. He has contributed over $20 million to the museum and has been a member of its International Council since 1978. Ambasz also served on the board of directors at MoMA PS1 from 2002 to 2006, and his architectural accolades include an award for the Grand Rapids Art Museum in Michigan.

The inaugural recipient of the Ambasz-MoMA Prize is Kashef Chowdhury/URBANA, an architecture firm based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, for its Friendship Centre in Gaibandha, Bangladesh. Designed between 2008 and 2010 and completed in 2011, the center serves as a training facility and meeting space for“underserved communities” in the Jamuna River delta, a rural area prone to floods and earthquakes. Due to the soil's inability to support heavy structures, the Friendship Centre uses a compacted earthen embankment for flood protection. It was constructed almost entirely by hand using locally made clay bricks. Its design draws inspiration from the ruins of a monastery at nearby Mahasthangarh, the country's oldest known archaeological site, dating back to at least the third century BCE.

Chowdhury established his firm with Marina Tabassum in 1995 and has been its principal since 2005. He previously received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture for the Friendship Centre in the 2014–16 cycle and was a finalist for the same award in 2004 for A5, a pavilion apartment. The Centre features offices, classrooms, a library, meditation spaces, dormitories, dining facilities, green roofs, open-air courtyards, and interconnected rainwater harvesting pools, designed to moderate temperatures and provide natural ventilation in a climate where mean temperatures can reach the mid-90s in April and May, with relative humidity between 65 and 74 percent.

The remaining $100,000 will go to the Fundación Gran Chaco in Formosa, Argentina, supporting reforestation efforts in the Gran Chaco forest. This contribution honors Friendship, the NGO founded and directed by Runa Khan, who commissioned the Friendship Centre. The winning project was selected from nearly 140 submissions, identified through research by the Ambasz Institute and nominations from 30 international experts.

The Emilio Ambasz Institute for the Joint Study of the Built and Natural Environment, established in 2020 within MoMA's department of architecture and design, organized the 2023–24 exhibition,“Emerging Ecologies: Architecture and the Rise of Environmentalism.” e-flux described the exhibition as imagining“an alternative American future where nature is in harmony with human settlement, technologically, aesthetically, and spiritually,” calling it“a brilliant cross-section of architectural innovations as they were developed.”

The inaugural prize jury included Evangelos Kotsioris, Martino Stierli, chief curator of architecture and design, and Paula Vilaplana de Miguel, assistant curator of architecture and design, all from MoMA. They were joined by two external jury members, Shelley McNamara of Ireland's Grafton Architects and Wang Shu of China's Amateur Architecture Studio.

Source: ARTnews

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