Jury

The professional international jury of the first edition of the Brussels Architecture Prize consists of renowned foreign architects and key figures from the international world of architecture with a connection to (or love for) Brussels. The jury makes the selections in two stages:

  • The jury first makes the preselection and then reduces the number of submissions to maximum eight nominated projects per category, except for the Lifetime Achievement Award. The latter is proposed by the scientific committee.
  • The jury then selects the four winners from among the nominees.

SAMIA HENNI

Samia Henni is a historian and an assistant professor at Cornell University researching the built, destroyed and imagined environments, and an Assistant Professor at Cornell University. She is the author of the multi-award-winning Architecture of Counterrevolution: The French Army in Northern Algeria (2017), the editor of the War Zones gta papers no. 2(2018), and the curator of exhibitions, such as Housing Pharmacology (2020) and Discreet Violence: Architecture and the French War in Algeria (2017–19). She received her Ph.D. in the history and theory of architecture from ETH Zurich and taught at Princeton University, ETH Zurich, and Geneva University of Art and Design. In 2021, she is the Albert Hirschman Chair at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Aix-Marseille University (IMéRA); a Guest Professor at the Institute of Art History at the University of Zurich; and a Visiting Geddes Fellow at Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture.

© Muhsin Akgün

DEYAN SUDJIC

Deyan Sudjic is a critic and curator, currently completing the biography of Stalin’s architect, Boris Iofan. He is the director emeritus of the Design Museum in London and Professor of Architecture and Design Studies at Lancaster University. He was the director of the Venice Architecture Biennale, and was the editor in chief of the architecture magazine Domus and the founding editor of the British magazine Blueprint. He has curated exhibitions on architecture and design in Istanbul, Seoul and Copenhagen, and published books, including the Language of Cities, and the Edifice Complex in eleven languages.

SOFIA VON ELLRICHSHAUSEN

Sofía von Ellrichshausen is an Argentinian architect, artist, and educator. In 2002, together with Mauricio Pezo, she founded the art and architecture studio Pezo von Ellrichshausen, based in the southern Chilean city of Concepción. She holds a degree in Architecture from the Universidad de Buenos Aires. She currently is the Professor of the Practice at Cornell University and has taught at Harvard University, the Illinois Institute of Technology and the Universidad Catolica in Santiago de Chile. Her work has been exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, as part of the Permanent Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago and the MoMA in New York, and at the Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition, where she was also the co-curator of the Chilean Pavilion in 2008 and Chair of the International Jury in 2018. Her work has been distinguished with the Mies Crown Hall Americas Emerge Prize by the IIT, the Rice Design Alliance Prize, the Iberoamerican Architecture Biennial Award and the Chilean Architecture Biennial Award.  

LOUIS LEGER

Louis Leger co-founded Bureau Architectures Sans Titre in Toulouse in 2013. Since then, anonymity has defined a practice in which the expression of collective work takes precedence over the individuality of any of the office’s partners or employees. The desire to question what is possible is particularly evident in the proactive research that the office attempts to apply to the projects it addresses. BAST won the 2017 Prix Architecture Occitanie, the 2017–2018 Europe 40 Under 40 Award, the 2018 Albums des Jeunes Architectes et Paysagistes (AJAP), and the Emerging Architecture prize of the 2019 EU Mies Award.

© Alba Yruela

ANNA PUIGJANER

Anna Puigjaner is a PhD architect, co-founder of MAIO, an architectural office that works on spatial systems which allow variation and change through time. Her personal research is focused on alternative domesticities able to reshape preset social structures. She is currently teaching at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation GSAPP at Columbia University. Formerly, she taught at Royal College of Arts, London, and at the Barcelona School of Architecture ETSAB/ETSAV – UPC. Among other recognitions, Anna was awarded for her research ‘Kitchenless City’ with the Wheelwright Prize 2016, Harvard GSD.

© Panos Kokkinias

KONSTANTINOS PANTAZIS

Konstantinos Pantazis studied Architecture and urbanism in Athens and the Berlage Institute Rotterdam, where he graduated with the collective project ‘’Brussels – A Manifesto, Towards the Capital of Europe’ (2007). He founded Point Supreme with Marianna Rentzou in 2008 after working in London, Rotterdam, Brussels and Tokyo. Aside of architecture, Point Supremes’ work ranges between urban projects and interiors. In 2012, Point Supreme were included among the 20 most influential personalities in Greece by popular Greek newspaper LIFO and their proposals for the city were shown at the Venice Biennale under the title ‘Made in Athens’. Their work has been shown widely in lectures and publications such as ‘Athens Projects’ (Graham Foundation Chicago, 2015) and ‘Radical Realities’ (Divisare, 2017). Pantazis and Rentzou both currently teach at Columbia University in New York.

Scientific committee

The jury is elected by the scientific committee, which consists of the following persons:

  • Kristiaan Borret (Bouwmeester/ Maître Architecte, Brussels Capital-Region),
  • Dag Boutsen (Dean of Architecture department, Hogeschool voor Wetenschap & Kunst, Sint-Lucas, KU Leuven)
  • Guy Condé-Reis (Architect in charge of the Cultural development department / ​Director of the Knowledge & Communication department, Urban.Brussels)
  • Audrey Contesse (Director of the ICA, Institut Culturel d’Architecture Wallonie-Bruxelles),
  • Lisa De Visscher (Editor in chief / artistic director of A+ Architecture in Belgium)
  • Nikolaus Hirsch (Artistic director of the CIVA – Architecture, Paysage, Urbanisme Bruxelles),
  • Pablo Lhoas (Dean of the Architecture Faculty, ULB La Cambre-Horta),
  • Lara Molino (Program coordinator, A+ Architecture in Belgium)
  • Typhaine Moogin (Architect in charge of public architectural contracts, Cellule Architecture – Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles).
  • Bety Waknine (Director of Urban.Brussels)

Public jury

A public jury chooses a favourite project from among the nominees, independently of all categories. The project with the most votes wins the Public’s Choice Award of the Brussels Architecture Prize.