Spanish artist Cristina Iglesias has been awarded the 2020 Royal Academy Architecture Prize in honour of a body of work that invites new ways of thinking about public space. 

Inaugurated in 2018, the Royal Academy Architecture Prize is given to an individual whose work inspires and instructs the discussion, collection or production of architecture in the broadest sense.

The Royal Academy of Arts has also announced The 2020 RA Dorfman Award finalists as AAU Anastas, AOR Architects, BCKJ Architects and WHCB Architects.

Deep Fountain (Diepe Fontein),1997-2006. Leopold de Waelplaats, Antwerp. Modified and polychromed cement, hydraulic mechanism and water. Image © Kristien Daem.

"With cities home to more and more people, generous public space is increasingly necessary for reflection and respite," The Royal Academy Architecture Prize. 

"Iglesias’s works exist in dialogue with the buildings around them, but go further in inviting their audiences – city dwellers – to contemplate their surroundings through the introduction of running water and naturalistic imagery reminiscent of fallen leaves."

Desde lo Subterráneo, 2017. Centro Botín, Santander. Stainless steel, water, stone and hydraulic mechanism. Image © Luis Asín.

Cristina Iglesias previously worked with some of the most important architects of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, creating sympathetic works that reward sustained reflection.

Desde lo Subterráneo, 2017. Centro Botín, Santander. Stainless steel, water,stone and hydraulic mechanism. Image © Luis Asín.

Forgotten Streams, 2017. Bloomberg, London. Bronze, water, stone, stainless steel and hydralic mechanism. Image © Nigel Young

At the Centro Botin, her work, entitled "Desde lo Suberraneo" (2017) circles Renzo Piano’s dramatic 2017 building. In Toledo, she takes on a dramatically different context with Tres Aguas (2014) sitting within a reclaimed water tower, a convent and the town hall square respectively. And in Madrid, Threshold-Entrance (2006-7) establishes a new dynamic between public space and the interior of the Prado Museum.

These interventions are representative of a body of work that is carefully and compellingly reshaping the way city inhabitants experience their urban environments. Her work inspires new ways for thinking about architecture, wherever they emerge.

Tres Aguas, 2014. The Water Tower, Toledo. Stainless steel, water and hydraulic mechanism. Image © Attilio Maranzano.

In 2019, Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio (DS+R) won the Royal Academy Architecture Prize and in 2018, Itsuko Hasagawa won the Royal Academy Architecture Prize. 

The winner of the Royal Academy Dorfman Award will be announced on 17 March 2020 as part of the Royal Academy Architecture Awards Week, taking place 16 to 19 March 2020 in London.

Top image: Cristina Iglesias, image © Javier Salas

> via Royal Academy of Arts