The Architecture Drawing Prize is co-curated by Make Architects, Sir John Soane’s Museum and World Architecture Festival (WAF). INSIDE World Festival of Interiors runs alongside WAF, with its own awards and conference programme. Delegates have access to both events. WAF and INSIDE are organised by EMAP, publishers of The Architectural Review and The Architects’ Journal.
Currently in its 6th year, The Architecture Drawing Prize continues to celebrate the art of drawing in three categories: hand-drawn, hybrid and digital.
This year the Prize is sponsored by Iris Ceramica and has attracted 138 entries with a strong majority of hand-drawn entries. As in previous years, the submissions are from around the world, attesting to the truly international nature of the Prize and the great skill and originality of entrants.
The 2022 Winner of the Hand-Drawn Category is ‘The Spirit of Mountain’ by Weicheng Ye. Drawn with pencil, the exceptionally atmospheric work explores the relationship between the man-made and nature. The Architecture Drawing Prize Jury Chair and Director of the World Architecture Festival (WAF), Paul Finch, describes the work:
“This is a drawing of great delicacy which highlights the difference between a tall-building aesthetic, and the possibility of disrupting it in a creative way via the insertion of nature as artistic intervention. A very worthy winner.”
The 2022 Hybrid Category winner is ‘Fitzroy Food Institute’ by Samuel Wen. The drawing explores themes around Chinese culture, globalisation and automation. Ken Shuttleworth, founder of Make Architects and one of the eight Prize judges, comments:
“Fitzroy Food Institute stands out for its well-considered and subtle use of colour. It’s a very accessible drawing looking over a shared meal at a table; yet it is full of architectural interest featuring not only a plan, but sections and elevations as well as detail. A conceptually original and genuinely delightful entry.”
Anton Markus Pasing who was the Overall Winner of The Architecture Drawing Prize in 2019 was selected as Digital Category winner this year. His drawing ‘The Wall’ plays on ideas around the beginning, the end and the finite.
Artists Ben Langlands and Nikki Bell who have been on The Architecture Drawing Prize as judges since its inception in 2017 explain why Pasing’s approach to drawing impressed the jury again:
“The Wall fills the view with a golden elevation: expansive and richly complex, it appears both vertical and horizontal, before us and below us, a terrain of construction and sedimented accumulation. It is not a border or a barrier, it is a space itself, a place of habitation, a record of social interaction. The wall is like time, it is history in the making.”
The Hand-Drawn Category shortlist also included:
- The Temple of Gaia by Giorgos Christofi
- Final Mexico Drawing by Ben Johnson
- Homage to Corb by Dustin Wheat
The Hybrid Category shortlist also included:
- The Stamper Battery by William du Toit
- Traversing Dreamscapes by Sean Seah
The Digital Category shortlist also included:
- The Minecraft Labyrinth – A Reclamation of Childhood by Eric Pham
- Mnemosyne by Meichen Duan
The Architecture Drawing Prize judges for 2022 are:
- Nikki Bell and Ben Langlands, Artists
- Bruce Boucher, Director of Sir John Soane’s Museum
- Pablo Bronstein, Artist
- Paul Finch, Director of World Architecture Festival (Chair of Jury)
- Lily Jencks, Co-founder of Lily Jencks Studio, Jencks Squared
- Federica Minozzi, CEO Iris Ceramica Group
- Narinder Sagoo, Senior Partner at Foster + Partners
- Ken Shuttleworth, Founder of Make Architects