The World Monuments Fund/Knoll Modernism Prize 2024 goes to Argentina’s Casa sobre el Arroyo

The winner of The World Monuments Fund/Knoll Modernism Prize 2024 has been introduced, crowning the conservation of Argentina’s Casa sobre el Arroyo (the Home on the Stream) because the yr’s most interesting. The honoured physique, the Ministerios de Cultura y de Obras Públicas y Municipalidad de Mar del Plata, carried out works on the historic piece of modernist structure, which had been vital in sensitively preserving the residence, designed in 1943 in playful brutalist structure spanning throughout a creek. 

The World Monuments Fund/Knoll Modernism Prize 2024 winner: Casa sobre el Arroyo

‘We’re proud to share that the conservation mission on the Casa sobre el Arroyo has grow to be the primary South American modernist challenge to be awarded this prize,’ mentioned president and CEO of World Monuments Fund Bénédicte de Montlaur. ‘Argentinian modernism takes its roots from a number of colleges, and the Casa sobre el Arroyo represents the energetic nature of that type. Its significance as an architectural icon has made it an emblem of nationwide satisfaction for Argentina and the positioning’s conservation reestablishes the home as an integral a part of Latin American heritage.’

Casa sobre el Arroyo was the previous residence of famed musician and composer Alberto Williams. The design was conceived by Alberto’s son, Amancio Williams, and Delfina Galvez Bunge de Williams, Amancio’s spouse. 

‘As the enduring first constructing of Amancio Williams, the Casa sobre el Arroyo exemplified its creator’s popularity as some of the tirelessly experimental architects of the fashionable motion,’ mentioned Professor of Artwork Historical past and Archaeology at Columbia College and Chairman of the Jury Barry Bergdoll. ‘It was as daring in its unadorned use of strengthened concrete for a sublime residence because it was sensible in creating a complicated inside all on one ground suspended within the treetops and poetically bridging a stream.

‘The interiors by Delfina Galvez Bunge de Williams, the architect’s spouse, are important to this whole artwork of modernist residing. Lengthy celebrated as an early landmark of modernist design in Latin America, the home has been introduced again from a lamentable state of abandon and vandalization to honour the collaboration between musician, architect, and inside designer.’

The biennial prize celebrates ‘architects, designers, and preservationists who’ve demonstrated progressive options to protect or restore threatened fashionable structure’. Previous winners embody an André Lurçat-designed faculty in France, and Britain’s Preston Bus Station.