Buildings with soul

What are the most significant events to have taken place this year? The openings of new buildings are the thing that makes us happiest. This is when the visions of  architects become real, in the form of bricks and concrete. Their private vision then becomes part of an intersubjective experience, a creation that can be admired for its aesthetics, utility or originality. This year saw the appearance of a number of new significant commercial buildings. The nominees include office buildings such as Gdański Business Centre (46,000 sqm) in Warsaw and Alchemia in Gdańsk (40,000 sqm). There was also no shortage of shopping centre openings, such as Galeria Warmińska in Olsztyn (116,000 sqm), Galeria Siedlce (63,000 sqm) and Amber in Kalisz (46,000 sqm). There has also been a fair share of public buildings, which, as last year’s victory of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews and that of the National Stadium the previous year show, represent strong competition for the commercial buildings nominated. This group of nominees includes the Mieczysław Karłowicz
Philharmonic in Szczecin, as well as ICE, a new large conference centre in Kraków. But are the largest projects automatically entitled to be the winners? Perhaps the jury will appreciate the original shape or functionality of an architectural pearl, which will scoop the award from under the noses of the larger candidates? “The voting will be divided into two stages. Firstly, representatives of the 200 most important companies operating on the Polish real estate market will choose the three best projects. Next, at the Eurobuild Awards gala, 700 representatives of the market will choose the winner in a direct vote,” says Katarzyna Matejuk, the director of the Eurobuild Awards project. The voting will be supervised by KPMG, an independent consulting company. ν