The Minister of Tourism of the Government of the Canary Islands, Rita Martín, announced the Jury's decision of the Ideas Competition for the Lanzarote Congress Palace. The authors of the winning project were Henning Larsen Architects and Carlos Morales Arquitecto.
The jury highlighted the winning architectural proposal, 'Fractal', for "its originality, adaptation to the program of needs, versatility, budget, energy efficiency criteria, incorporation of alternative energies and ease of maintenance and conservation of the building".
The Minister of Tourism of the Canary Executive congratulated the authors of the award-winning project and expressed her satisfaction "for the agility of the process and the consensus of all the agents of the tourism industry of the Island so that Lanzarote has a building that responds to the needs of the sector in the congress tourism product". She also stressed that one of the award-winning architects, Carlos Morales, is of Canarian origin.
The head of the Tourism Area of the Government of the Canary Islands also stated the high quality of all the projects presented and highlighted as one of her priorities that the Canary Islands have all its quality infrastructure to promote congress tourism in the Islands and join efforts working in a single direction, public and private agents of the sector.
International competition
To obtain this final result, an international architecture competition has been convened in which 52 architects have competed to provide Lanzarote with an International Congress Center that contributes to improving the supply of specialized infrastructure in Congress, Convention and Incentive tourism, as well as cultural events.
This is an ideas competition for drafting a project, which has been public and open in its first phase, and restricted to a maximum of 10 candidates in its second phase, selected with the intervention of juries.
Regarding the decision of the competition and award, once the deadline for the presentation of the contestants selected for the second phase has been met, the Jury has met, within the established period, to award a first prize, consisting of the commission of the Basic and Execution Project and the Health and Safety Study, as well as the Works Management and the Coordination in terms of Health and Safety, through a negotiated procedure without publicity.
With respect to the other participating projects, the jury has ruled that Arquitectonia Proyectos de Europa S.L. be placed in second place; Nieto Soberano Arquitectos in third place; and Menis Arquitecto S. L. in fourth place.
For the planning of the Lanzarote Congress Building, the experience of the Maspalomas Congress Palace and the Magma Arte & Congresos Congress Palace has been taken into account, while taking into account the studies of the latest Congress buildings developed in Spain.
The schedule of the two phases of the international architecture competition has consisted of a first phase, of 35 days from its publication; and a second phase, of 67 days from its beginning. Now that the jury has designated the winner of the competition, they will have 45 days to deliver the basic project and 60 days to deliver the execution project.
