Jimenez Lai wins the inaugural Lisbon Triennale Millennium BCP Début Award

Jimenez Lai continues to take the world by storm: the founder of Chicago-based Bureau Spectacular was announced last night as the winner of the first Lisbon Triennale Millennium BCP Début Award for architects under 35. The announcement took place at Lisbon’s Electricity Museum marking the first day of the opening week of Close, Closer, the third Lisbon Architecture Triennale.

An international jury had narrowed the more than 180 entries of outstanding quality from around the world to a shortlist of ten finalists whose “Range and originality, substance and quality are testament of a vibrant new generation of practitioners shaping the discipline”.

Besides Bureau Spectacular/Jimenez Lai, the Début Award shortlist comprised:

• Assemble, London, UK
• Atelier Hirschbichler, Zurich, CH
• FALA, Porto, PT
• Frida Escobedo, Mexico DF, MX
• Gruppe, Zurich, CH
• Léopold Lambert, New York, US
• SAMI, Setúbal, PT
• SO - IL, New York, US

Jimenez Lai was chosen for the originality and range of his body of work, whose uncompromising and thought-provoking approach to formalism lends it an exploratory vein that, in the words of the jury, is crucial to the future of architecture.

The international jury of the Début Award was formed by:

• Eva Franch I Gilabert (Spain), founder of OOAA and Director of Storefront for Art and Architecture
• Ou Ning (China), activist, curator, editor, artist and urban researcher
• Tatiana Bilbao (Mexico), founder of studio Tatiana Bilbao S.C.
• Beatrice Galilee (UK), chief curator of Close, Closer
• Diogo Seixa Lopes (Portugal), founder of studio Barbas Lopes, Arquitectos