Viviendas en Gerona y Alcoy

The modest architecture of social housing is 1999’s resounding winner of the Fomento de las Artes Decorativas Awards. An apartment block by Arcadi Pla in Gerona and a residential development by Manuel de Solà-Morales in the Sangre district of Alcoy shared the podium in the architecture category, but sobriety determined the choices also in interior design, with Maroto & Soto’s ‘La oreja de plata II’ jewelry store in Madrid; in public spaces, with Godía & Casas’ Parque de la Solidaridad at Esplugues de Llobregat; in ephemeral spaces, with the group Tierra de Nadie’s installation ‘The City of Words’ in the Barcelona quarter of El Raval. Since the prizes are now open to the entire Iberian Peninsula, among the finalists are Portuguese buildings such as the Matosinhos cultural silo by Eduardo Souto de Moura of Oporto and the Pavilion of the Oceans that João Luis Carrilho da Graça of Lisbon designed for the Expo 98 in the same city. The latter project was awarded the grand prize of the jury, which praised the formal restraint that has ensured its survival beyond the duration of the exhibition.