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The International Urban Landscape Award (IULA) is this year going to the Parc Central de Nou Barris in Barcelona. The Award is conferred annually by Eurohypo AG, the leading specialist bank for real estate and public finance, in collaboration with Topos, the international journal for landscape architecture and urban design, and the magazine A&W Architektur&Wohnen. The presentation ceremony was held in Frankfurt am Main on Friday, 5 October. The prize money of euro 50,000 will go to the benefit of the winning project.
The park completed this year as the second largest in the Catalan capital convinced the international jury for its function as a local recreation area and its unusual design. In addition, the jury also felt that the Parc Central performed an important integrative task in a rapidly expanding and multi-ethnic quarter of Barcelona.
“Near-to-nature spaces laid out in the middle of cities are islands of recreation and places of encounter. In an age of increasing urbanisation of the world, they also make a major contribution to protecting the climate”, commented Bernd Knobloch, Chief Executive Officer of Eurohypo AG, at the presentation of the Award.
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The architects and landscape architects Andreu Arriola Madorell and Carmen Fiol Costa from Barcelona had submitted the “Parc Central de Nou Barris” project for the IULA 2007. The park design was based on the assignment to create a connecting element in Nou Barris - in many respects a heterogeneously structured district. Their inspiration for the park design came from the early cubist and very colourful pictures of Pablo Picasso, which the young artist painted in 1909 at La Horta de San Juan (in Catalonia). The triangle was chosen as the creative guiding theme of the park because it is the most flexible of the geometric forms. Triangular wooden structures resembling artificial palms are therefore also the symbols of the park. They stand – singly or in groups – at key locations, giving shade during the day and illuminating the park at night. The fundamental features of this Mediterranean garden are trees, lawns, ponds, paths and tiled walls that are blended harmoniously into the various levels of the park. The Parc Central invites you to go for a casual stroll as much as to play boisterous games in the spaciously laid out playgrounds.
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Altogether close on 60 entries were submitted from such countries as the USA, Mexico, Switzerland, Poland, Great Britain, Germany, The Netherlands and Spain. Besides the winning project, four other projects were nominated for the Award:
Following the presentation of the Award, an international round of experts, including the patron of the event, Klaus Töpfer – former German Minister of Urban Development and former Executive Director of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) – then discussed the challenges posed by climate change for megacities.
