The Álvaro Siza Wing was awarded in the Museums and Cultural Buildings category, while the Loures urban redevelopment project, located near Lisbon and designed by Topiaris landscape architecture atelier, was recognized in the Urban Planning/Landscape category.
The Brazilian project Parque Global in São Paulo, crafted by Enea Landscape Architecture and Cardim Arquitetura Paisagística ateliers, also received distinction in this category.
The new Serralves wing, a creation by Álvaro Siza, was inaugurated in 2024, expanding the Serralves Contemporary Art Museum by 44% in exhibition space and 75% in storage area, according to a statement from the institution.
The Serralves Foundation describes the wing as “organically integrated into the Serralves Park.”
The document highlights, “This extension houses one floor dedicated to the Serralves Collection and another entirely focused on architecture — a strategic pillar of the Foundation’s mission — enhancing the dialogue between art, architecture, and landscape.”
“The expansion has also facilitated the incorporation of new archives and storage, bolstering Serralves’ mission as a space for the preservation, research, and dissemination of contemporary art and architecture, both nationally and internationally,” the institution continues.
For the Foundation, “this distinction reaffirms” its “commitment to excellence, acknowledging its relevance as a reference institution in contemporary art, architecture, and heritage preservation.”
The jurors of the International Architecture Awards commend the Loures riverfront project, following the Parque das Nações in Lisbon, for its goal to complete the continuity of the intermunicipal path between Lisbon and Vila Franca de Xira, in a strategic plan for a continuous greenway along the Tejo River riverside.
The connection of the urban areas, previously isolated from the river by roads and railways, establishes a route that, according to the jury, is an important mobility infrastructure, a matrix for daily transportation, contributing to CO2 emission reduction and improving people’s quality of life.
Adhering to pedestrian accessibility standards, the route became inclusive, unveiling “a surprising landscape: a mosaic of natural ecosystems alongside a highly urbanized, yet inaccessible area.”
Minutes from densely populated neighborhoods, there are native marshes and reed beds, supporting rich flora and fauna, explains the organization, noting that “thus, it is protected by various national and international legislations, such as Sites of Community Importance, Special Protection Areas, and National Ecological Reserve.”
The Casa Souto in Porto, a project by Ventura + Partners architecture firm, led by Manuel Ventura, received an honorable mention in the category for single-family homes.
Similarly, Brazilian projects Auka Inn in Cairu, Bahia, by FGMF atelier in the hospitality category, and Auris Residenze in Santa Catarina, by architect Marco Casamonti and Archea Brasil Interior Design studio, in the residential category, also received honorable mentions.
The panel for the 2025 International Architecture Awards included architect and architecture historian Almantas Samalavicius, a full professor at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University’s School of Architecture in Lithuania, a research associate and director of the Institute of Architecture, academic Chiu Chen-Yum, a researcher in the Department of Architecture at Bilkent University in Ankara and the Technical University of Munich, designer and architect Flavio Mansoni, who earned an honorary master’s degree in “Letters, Modern Philology and Cultural Industry” from the University of Sassari in Italy, and an honorary master’s in design from the University of Florence, and Sang Dae Lee, recipient of the 2024 International Architecture Prize for his innovative work, currently teaching at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, United States.
Established in 2004 by the Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design, the European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies, and the Metropolitan Arts Press, the International Architecture Awards aim to “honor the best and most significant new architectural, landscape, urban planning, and building projects, designed and/or constructed by the world’s leading architects, landscape architects and urban planners, operating nationally and internationally.”
