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.
