Sergei Tchoban named 2018 European Prize for Architecture winner

The prestigious European Prize for Architecture goes to Russian/German architect Sergei Tchoban this year. Awarded annually by The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design to outstanding European architects in celebration of critical thinking and artistic approach in architectural design, the jury praised Tchoban for his "powerful designs and a unique design vision that celebrates the best of modernist buildings that are internationally iconic, complex, enigmatic, provocative, and profoundly artistic."

The Prize will be officially presented at an award ceremony in Athens, Greece on September 28.

"Architect Tchoban has offices in Berlin and Moscow, and designs, plans, and builds internationally. His most famous projects to date include the Federation Tower in Moscow, the DomAquarée CityQuartier in Berlin; ExpoForum and Nevskaya City Hall, St. Petersburg (together with Evgeny Gerasimov and Partners); Water Sports Palace in Kazan; Cubix Cinema, Berlin; the Jewish Cultural Center and Synagogue Chabad Lubavitch, Berlin; the Music and Lifestyle Hotel nhow, Berlin; Russia's Pavilion at EXPO 15 in Milan; and the building of the Museum of Architectural Drawing (with Sergey Kuznetsov), Berlin."

"In 1992, he started work at nps Nietz-Prasch-Sigl in Hamburg; and in 1995, he became the firm's managing partner, which now trades as Tchoban Voss Architeken, together with his partner, Ekkerhard Voss, and with offices in Hamburg, Berlin, Dresden. Simultaneously, in 2006, he also formed SPEECH architectural office in Moscow together with Serkey Kuznetsov. Initially the bureau was called SPEECH Tchoban/Kuznetsov; but after Sergey Kuznetsov was appointed Chief Architect of Moscow in 2012 and left the company, Tchoban became the sole architect and managing partner, and the name of the office was shortened to SPEECH."

"The office has specialized in designing buildings and complexes with various functional purposes, developing urban concepts, as well as designing interiors. Projects by SPEECH have been implemented in numerous cities in Russia (Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Sochi, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, and others), as well as abroad (Berlin, Milan, Venice, Minsk)."

"In 2009, he also founded the Tchoban Foundation – Museum for Architectural Drawing in Berlin with the aim to foster the drawing skills of talented young architects and to make the founder’s collection accessible for study. The Foundation also promotes the validity of draughtsmanship to both the profession and the public at a time when computer-generated imagery has become virtually ubiquitous. More specifically, the Foundation reasons that drawing is essential to architecture because “development and training of formal and proportional inventiveness still proceeds via ideas which flow through the drawing hand.” The Museum features exhibitions of drawings on site, as well as in other museums worldwide."

"Tchoban's focus is on finding a modernist-influenced vocabulary that is highly buildable now and reads as clean and contemporary, while preserving a focus on materials (stone, tile, brick, bronze), facades with windows, architectural detail, and modernism's mix of strong blocks and sensuous curves."

"'In my projects, I try to go beyond the boundaries of the accustomed Modernist minimalism, which is based on producing a particular perfection of the architectural detail, but does not quite reach that atmospheric environment, which we admire in our favorite cities,' continues the architect."

"These and other key buildings represent Sergei Tchoban’s significant contributions to the City of Berlin for over the course of 20 years. Parallel to his work in Germany, Tchoban has been actively designing in Russia since 2003."

"His architectural drawings are in the collection of Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Akademie der Künste in Berlin, The State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg and various private collections."

Previous prize laureates include Bjarke Ingels (Denmark), Graft Architects (Germany), TYIN Architects (Norway), Marco Casagrande (Finland), Alessandro Mendini (Italy), Santiago Calatrava (Spain/Switzerland), LAVA Laboratory for Visionary Architecture (Germany), and most recently, Manuelle Gautrand (France).