---

---

21.12.2012 10:44

Invitation to the presentation of the Tessenow Medal 2012 to Prof. Alberto Campo Baeza

Andrea Pfeiffer Referat für Universitätsentwicklung und Kommunikation
HafenCity Universität Hamburg

The Spanish architect Campo Baeza will receive the award of the Heinrich Tessenow Society at a public ceremony on January 30, 2013. The keynote speaker will be Dr. Dorothee Stapelfeld, science senator of Hamburg. Karl-Heinz Schmitz, professor at the Bauhaus University Weimar, will hold the laudatory speech. The HafenCity University Hamburg (HCU) cooperates closely with the Heinrich Tessenow Society with regards to their common concern for the building culture.

Media representatives are kindly invited to the ceremony on
January 30, 5 p.m.
Patriotische Gesellschaft von 1765 in Hamburg,Trostbrücke 6, 22457 Hamburg

On the occasion of the award of the Tessenow Medal to Prof. Alberto Campo Baeza an exhibition of his selected projects can be viewed at the HafenCity University.

Media representatives are kindly invited to the ceremony on
January 30, 1 p.m.
HafenCity University Hamburg, Headquarter, Großer Grasbrook 9, 20457 Hamburg

Press affiliation and contact to HCU headquarter:
Andrea Pfeiffer
HafenCity Universität Hamburg
Leitung Universitätsentwicklung und Kommunikation
Tel.: +49 (0)40 428 27 - 2730
andrea.pfeiffer@vw.hcu-hamburg.de

Contact for professional and technical queries:
Prof. Paolo Fusi, Architekt
Fusi & Ammann Architekten
Tel.: +49 (0)40 36111400
fusi@fusi-ammann.com

Heinrich Tessenow Society:
Jürgen Padberg
Architekt und Dombaumeister
pmp Architekten
Tel.: +49 (0)40 3510660
padberg@pmp-architekten.de

Prof. Alberto Campo Baeza – Tessenow Laureate 2013

Spanish architect Alberto Campo Baeza, born in Valladolid in 1946, studied at ETSAM in Madrid. His first and influential professor was Alejandro de la Sota. After his graduation he worked with Julio Cano Lasso, then set up his own office in Madrid. Here he has practiced with a few assistants to the present day.
For more than 25 years Alberto Campo Baeza has been involved in research and teaching students and young architects as a tenured professor at ETSAM. He has been invited to teach at many important international universities. He was a visiting professor at ETH in Zurich, EPFL in Lausanne, Bauhaus University in Weimar as well as the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia (USA), CUA in Washington and Columbia University in New York.
Alberto Campo Baeza is one of the most eminent protagonists of current architectural debates within Spain and internationally. For nearly thirty years he has pursued his agenda of preserving the heritage of the language of architecture and of developing and adapting it to present day topics. Due to his minimalist stance and his austere architectural work he has successfully combined a strong esthetic radicalism with the poetic singularity of its place.
His projects have been built throughout Spain in in many other countries. Most well-known are the houses Casa Trégano, Casa de Blas and Casa Gaspar, also Casa Asencio, Casa Guerrero and the recent Olnick Spanu House. Further eminent buildings are the center BIT, Caja de Granada and the Museo de la Memoria de Andalucia.
His schemes and buildings have been published in numerous monographs, articles and exhibitions. Highlights have been the exhibitions at Crown Hall in Chicago, Palladio’s basilica in Vicenza, the Urban Center in New York, the Basilica Santa Irene in Istanbul, the Gallery Toto in Tokyo, in the Tempietto by Bramante as well as the MAXXI in Rome and the Biennale 2012 in Venice.
Alberto Campo Baeza receives the Heinrich-Tessenow-Medal 2013 for an oeuvre that reflects an extraordinary intellectual dedication, an outstanding artistic quality and a great ethic of discipline.
He conceives the fundamental architectural form as an essential challenge in architecture. He deals with it with patience, concentration and endurance to realize his austere buildings. His great creative and intellectual abilities, his comprehensive cultural interest combined with a relentless diligence are the requirements to produce this level of architecture.
In addition, a solution of an architectural problem requires a precise logic and extreme accuracy. To achieve this he is on a constant quest for the essence of architecture. Therefore he commences with an exact analysis of the problems which will have to be solved by the built form. Every time he starts his research off from zero with complete inner freedom deliberately questioning all conventional assumptions.
His research is based on a profound knowledge of history, a tradition of discipline, the teachings of his masters and the locality and culture of the building’s place. Stereotypes and fashionable tendencies have not been part of this quest. Alberto Campo Baeza hasn’t taken anything for granted, but continues to question any apparent certainty in order to reach the core of the architectural problem.
This radical stance accompanies his ardent investigation for a minimalist architectural expression. This not only guarantees an outstanding architectural quality. Moreover it reflects the essence and central meaning of the architectural form. In the work of Alberto Campo Baeza this form is a built idea that entails and expresses a concept. First and foremost the idea is a matter of space, the way volume deflects the space and makes the light perceivable. Buildings like the Olnick Spanu House or the De Bas House illustrate vividly the narrative character of gravity. It recounts the basic principles of tectonics and stereometry as Campo Baeza calls them. In fascinating spaces such as the courtyard of the Caja de Granada the light acts upon the physical matter and creates an appropriate level of abstraction to highlight the architectural idea.
Alberto Campo Baeza’s architecture is a constant challenge to address the profound and essential subject of the discipline. For instance the basic issue of housing that has continuously recurred in his work enables him to create innovative spaces with a striking minimalist elegance and precision, notably in Casa Gaspar and Casa Guerrero. They embody archaic spaces of memory and at the same time are highly adaptable to the diversity of current lifestyles. In the Museo de la Memoria de Andalucia or the house in Zahara the relationship between place and artifact has been brought up with a natural consistency and has been mastered with an exact gesture.
The proportions of gravity and light, of form and space have been shaped by Alberto Campo Baeza towards an architecture that succeeds to be a built idea. This works especially well when the semantic gestures are being reduced to their essence to attain the core of the architectural question.
As for Heinrich Tessenow, in the work of Alberto Campo Baeza the truth of the design process lies in the construction and engineered form, in the standards and precision of sizes and proportions. On this way the form in his work achieves a level of universal validity that reflects a deep sense of an ethical stance and awards a humanist character to his architecture.

Prof. Paolo Fusi,
Heinrich Tessenow-Gesellschaft
October 2012

The Heinrich Tessenow Medal

The Heinrich Tessenow Medal is conferred on Europeans who, in memory of the great architect, builder and teacher, have achieved distinction in architecture, crafts, or industrial design, have contributed to the teaching of the culture of living and building, or whose work bears a relationship to the many-sided lifetime achievement of Heinrich Tessenow.
Previous prizewinners have included Kay Fisker, Hans Döllgast, Giorgio Grassi, David Chipperfield, Eduardo Souto de Moura, Peter Märkli, Mirosloav Šik, Sergison Bates and Richard Sennett. The award is made by the Heinrich Tessenow Society.

---

<
Centre BIT - Sketch Alberto Campo Baeza

None

---

Anhang

Information in four languages

---

Merkmale dieser Pressemitteilung:
Journalisten
Bauwesen / Architektur, Kulturwissenschaften
überregional
Personalia, Pressetermine
Englisch

---