The architect Nuno Brandão Costa has won the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) award for Architecture 2021. The distinction was awarded following the work of the Campanhã Intermodal Terminal, in Porto, whose buildings were completed in 2021.
Created in partnership with the Ministry of Culture and the Millennium BCP Foundation, the AICA/MC/Millennium BCP Architecture Prize was unanimously awarded to the professor and researcher of the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto by the jury, presided by Catarina Rosendo and composed by Luísa Soares de Oliveira, Paulo Pires do Vale, Inês Lobo, and Rui Mendes.
According to the university’s website, the jury explained that “the work [Campanhã Intermodal Terminal] confirms the author’s path of excellence and constitutes a remarkable milestone in current Portuguese architecture, by the way, it favours the new systems of urban mobility and the consequent regeneration of an area of the city affected, since the 19th century, by the construction of the railway structure still existing and in operation”.
This is, therefore, “one of the most relevant public projects underway in Porto, articulating in an exemplary way infrastructure, topography, and public space in a city that goes back to the territory for the introduction of natural systems in its design,” the jury also said.
This project was won in a tender in 2017, with the part of the contract relating to the buildings of the Campanhã Intermodal Terminal being completed in 2021. The exterior spaces are still being finalized.