Pritzker prize winning Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena has been named as the recipient of the 2018 RIBA Charles Jencks Award by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). The prize is given in recognition of a major contribution internationally to both the theory and practice of architecture.“Alejandro Aravena is an excellent role model for students and emerging practitioners. Energetically combining professional practice, written pedagogy, and academia, his work has a classical tectonic force, a humbling relevance to the global debate about social housing, and a refusal to be subject to conventional expectations,” said David Gloster, Chair of the RIBA Charles Jencks Award judging panel and RIBA Director of Education.Aravena completed his studies from the Catholic University of Chile and IUAV in Venice. After establishing his own practice, he went on to teach at Harvard University, where he founded the “Do Tank” ELEMENTAL with Andres Iacobelli. The Chile-based practice is led by Alejandro, alongside Gonzalo Arteaga, Juan Cerda, Victor Oddo, and Diego Torres, and works globally, on projects of public interest and social impact. Alejandro became an International Fellow of the RIBA in 2010. In 2015, he led the 15th International Architecture Exhibition as the Director at the Venice Biennale and in 2016 he won the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize.“Although in his public statements, Aravena is (probably rightly) sceptical of architecture which is too uniquely conceived to act as a model for other development, paradoxically he produces work which is visually and viscerally compelling. He has an emphatic skill in marking places with arresting forms which both linger in the memory and have real utility, becoming deeply loved,” adds Gloster.Since its initiation in 2003, the Charles Jencks Prize is presented annually. Previous winners include Niall McLaughlin, Herzog & de Meuron, Benedetta Tagliabue, Rem Koolhaas, Eric Owen Moss, Steven Holl, Charles Correa, Wolf Prix, Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos, Zaha Hadid, Alejandro Zaera-Polo and Farshid Moussavi, Peter Eisenman, and Cecil Balmond.Charles Jencks is a landscape designer, architectural theorist and writer, best known for his writing on post-modern architecture and as Trustee and Co-founder of Maggie's Cancer Caring Centres with Maggie Keswick. The award ceremony, chaired by Charles Jencks, will be held on October 15 at the RIBA in London.http://www.blouinartinfo.com/                                Founder: Louise Blouin   Read more