Architect and painter Alireza Taghaboni is among five nominees for the first edition of the annual architecture ‘RA Dorfman Award’ in summer, organized by the Royal Academy of Arts, the oldest art institution in England.
For the award, Taghaboni, founder of Next Office Studio of Architecture in Tehran, competes with Anne Holtrop, founder of Studio Anne Holtrop with two offices in the Netherlands and Bahrain, Rahel Shawl, founder of RAAS Architects based in Ethiopia, Go Hasegawa, founder of Go Hasegawa and Associates in Japan, and Arquitectura Expandida, a design cooperative enterprise based in Bogota, Colombia.
The award ceremony that promotes new talent in architecture is scheduled for July 4. RA is an art institution based in Mayfair, London. It has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects; its purpose is to promote the creation and appreciation of the visual arts through exhibitions, education and debate, the official website of the academy wrote.
“During the process of deciding the shortlist for the award, the jury discussed what architecture means and what it can bring to people, how it can bring change to societies and what it means for the Royal Academy to be awarding this prize,” Artdaily reported Louisa Hutton, chairperson of the jury, as saying.
Another Iranian architect Mohsen Mostafavi, dean of Harvard Graduate School of Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the US, is a member of the jury.
Diverse Projects
Taghaboni has been involved with architecture since 2004. He founded Next Office in 2009 with the aim of providing contemporary responses to traditional Iranian architecture, taking into account climatic conditions, the economic, political, social and cultural contexts of the country. His projects range from detached single-family houses to urban master plans and residential, commercial and mixed-use large-scale complexes.
Among his many projects, Sharifiha House, in Tehran’s upscale Darrous neighborhood, is notable and was shortlisted at the World Architecture Festival in 2014. It features three rooms that can be rotated 90 degrees to open up views and terraces during the hot summers and turned back to a horizontal position to keep the house warmer during the cold winters.
The three pods house a breakfast room on the first floor, a guest room on the second floor and a home office on the third floor. Each features a door at the side that provides access to the terrace when they opened and access to the house when closed.
The Royal Academy of Arts was founded through a personal act of King George III in 1768 with a mission to promote the arts of design in Britain through education and exhibition.
The motive in founding the academy was twofold: to raise the professional status of the artist by establishing a sound system of training and expert judgments in the arts and to arrange the exhibition of contemporary works of art attaining an appropriate standard of excellence.
Supporters wanted to foster a national school of art and to encourage appreciation and interest among the public.
Caption: Caption 2: Highlight: In his works, Taghaboni tries to provide contemporary responses to traditional Iranian architecture, as well as taking into account climatic conditions and the economic, political, social and cultural contexts of the country
