Mido awarded the architects of the UIA

Alba Alsina Maqueda, Heba El Sawy and Franz Linder

For the second year running, Mido chose to associate with the award ceremony of the International Union of Architects (UIA). The awards were handed out in Seoul on September 6th, on the occasion of the organisation’s sixth world congress.

The winner of the 2017 edition was Japanese architect Toyo Ito, who was presented by Mido’s CEO Franz Linder with a pink gold Baroncelli watch bearing his name.

Since his Urban Robot (Urbot) agency (later renamed “Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects”) was established in Tokyo in 1971, the Japanese architect has constantly explored new horizons in international architecture. He is one of the founders and leading proponents of conceptual architecture, a movement seeking to simultaneously express the physical and the virtual worlds.

The creation of the Japanese Pavilion at the Universal Exhibition in Hanover in 2000 was particularly important in paving the way for his international career. In 2002, he designed the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London and the National Taichung Theatre in Taiwan. His prolific work has won a number of awards over the past fifteen years: the Golden Lion in Venice in 2002; the Royal Gold Medal in the UK in 2006; the Praemium Imperiale in Japan in 2010; and the Pritzker Prize in the US in 2013.

The UIA gold medal is a unique, international prize, uninfluenced by any national or private interests, and the supreme accolade an architect can be given by peers during his or her lifetime. It pays homage to an architect’s work, to the contributions made throughout their life and career to human beings, society, and the promotion of architectural art.

In parallel, the watch brand has created the UNESCO-UIA & Mido Responsible Architecture Prize which was awarded for the first time this year. This new distinction open to architecture students supports projects with a humanistic and ecological purpose. The two first laureates are Heba El Sawy (Egypt) and Alba Alsina Maqueda (Spain), each of whom received a Baroncelli Heritage watch bearing their name.

September 28, 2017