Each year the American Institute of Architects (AIA) presents the “Twenty Five Year Award” to a building between 25 and 35 years old which is distinguished for its lasting qualities.

For 2002 the Joan Mirò Foundation has been chosen, completed in 1975 and designed by Catalan architect Josep Lluís Sert (in 1955 he set up a practice in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which then became Sert, Jackson & Associates), a personal friend of Mirò, to house works by the artist along with other contemporaries.

“What is extraordinary in retrospect is the significant use of natural light, scale giving form, a measure of tactility”, the selection jury observed, “This in a time when there was an obsession with structural monumentalism and mono-material buildings which yielded scaleless, dehumanized, oftentimes, aggressive environments. It is a structure that celebrates the human spirit as interpreted by the artist, in the culture of the place. The tools of the artist; material, color and light, are the tools of the architect”. The awards ceremony will take place 1 March in Washington.