Once again, the Spanish Council of Architects’ Associations (CSCAE) has made architecture a shared celebration by granting the Architecture Awards 2025 to projects that not only build spaces but also forge connections, preserve memories, shape territories and imagine futures. This year, the jury, composed of renowned architect, selected 9 winning projects from among 27 finalists, previously chosen from 456 submissions. Six awards honour fundamental architectural values; the remaining three recognise long-standing achievements and works that exemplify permanence or offer an inspiring vision of contemporary urbanism.
Kunstsilo, Kristiansand (Norway)
Kunstsilo is a manifesto on the beauty of emptiness, the poetics of concrete, and architecture’s power to reframe place. A former grain silo has been transformed into a museum of contemporary art without renouncing its brutalist character or original silence. The interventions—precise and reverent—imbue the building with a cathedral-like atmosphere, balancing the intimate and the monumental.
From its vertical lobby to its new sea-facing lookout, Kunstsilo unfolds an architectural narrative that embraces heritage, innovation, sustainability, and social inclusion. A project that redefines Kristiansand’s waterfront with a distinct voice—and proof that Spanish architecture can leave its mark abroad without losing its light.
Spanish Architecture Award
Authors: Mendoza Partida + BAX Studio + Mestres Wage.
Promoter: Regional Art Museum for South of Norway.
Photography: Alan Williams.
Library of a Thousand Suns, Madrid
In the Butarque neighbourhood, south of Madrid, architecture has fulfilled a long-awaited collective dream: the construction of its first public library. With its evocative name and luminous presence, the Library of a Thousand Suns becomes a catalyst for culture and community life. Its design integrates green corridors, open plazas, and urban solutions that promote intergenerational connection, everyday well-being and emotional attachment.
The building, certified by the Green Building Council Spain, has also been recognised by the international C40 Cities network as an example of environmental best practice. But beyond technical standards, its true value lies in having planted a new urban narrative—one where beauty, care, and social justice walk hand in hand. A climate refuge, a cultural node, a space where architecture serves as a tool for social transformation.
Award for Sustainability and Health
Authors: Miguel Ángel Díaz Camacho, MADC & Partners SLP.
Promoter: Ayuntamiento de Madrid.
Photography: Javier Callejas.
Refuge for birds and mammals and water reservoir, Kirchberg (Luxembourg)
In the heart of a protected Natura 2000 forest, this project challenges the conventional idea of infrastructure, replacing it with a quiet, respectful and deeply sensitive intervention. The refuge for birds and mammals, together with the water reservoir that manages a nearby lagoon, is conceived as architecture in dialogue with its ecosystem.
Fragmented into small volumes, clad in larch wood and cork, and topped with a green roof that absorbs rainwater, the complex not only minimises its environmental impact but also fosters new habitats. Designed in collaboration with ornithologists and ecologists, it features strategically placed nesting sites for migratory birds and local bats. It is at once technical infrastructure, territorial sculpture, and a shelter for life. A built manifesto on the possibility of inhabiting the world without harming it.
New European Bauhaus Award
Authors: Temperaturas Extremas Arquitectos + Adelino Magalhães Asociados.
Promoter: Ville de Luxembourg.
Photography: Miguel Fernández Galiano.
Concéntrico, Logroño
For a decade now, the Concéntrico Festival has transformed Logroño into a living laboratory where architecture and urban design open themselves to play, critique and shared emotion. Through ephemeral installations, participatory actions, exhibitions and publications, this event offers a renewed vision of public space—as a stage for dialogue between citizens, art and place.
The award celebrates not only Concéntrico’s trajectory as an urban innovation lab, but also its power to create lasting ties between architecture and civil society. Its open, inclusive and multidisciplinary spirit has positioned Logroño as an international epicentre for contemporary thinking on ways of inhabiting the city. A festival that doesn’t just exhibit architecture—it activates it, questions it and celebrates it.
Commitment Award
Autores: Fundación Cultural de los Arquitectos de La Rioja y Javier Peña Ibáñez.
Promoters: Ayuntamiento de Logroño, Gobierno de La Rioja, Garnica y Bodegas LAN.
Photography: Make it rain – Josema Cutillas.
Stabilisation of urban anthropic cave system, Tomelloso
Beneath the surface of Tomelloso lies a legacy carved into the earth: a network of anthropic caves that have shaped the city’s life and imagination for centuries. Threatened by collapse and neglect, these underground structures have been rescued by a project that combines constructive wisdom with ethical commitment.
Using traditional materials—solid brick and lime concrete—recycling aggregates from the caves themselves, and employing techniques that can be replicated by local builders, the intervention becomes a lesson in urban regeneration rooted in proximity. It is architecture born from listening to the land, unafraid to delve into the depths to rescue the soul of a community.
Profession Award
Authors: José Antonio Aguado Benito y Javier Vellés Montoya.
Promoter: Ayuntamiento de Tomelloso.
Photography: Javier Longobardo.
A line over the Cervol, Vinaròs (Castellón)
Where once there was a boundary, there is now a bond. “A line over the Cervol” redefines the mouth of the river that flows through Vinaròs, transforming its delta into a space of harmonious transition between city and sea. A light, horizontal bridge connects two coastal paths, allowing pedestrians and cyclists to cross without interrupting the horizon.
Around it, a Mediterranean pine grove becomes a natural refuge, while sober, locally sourced urban furniture supports rather than distracts. Native vegetation, resilient strategies and a respectful design make this project both subtle and essential. A delicate seam in the landscape. A threshold that connects not just shores, but also memories, biodiversity and community.
Habitat Award
Authors: SBP Ingenieros + Burgos & Garrido Arquitectos.
Promoter: Ayuntamiento de Vinaròs.
Photography: Roland Halbe.
Tobacco Factory and Cinema Victoria, Santa Cruz de Tenerife
In a context where industrial and cultural heritage is often overlooked, the restoration of the Tobacco Factory and Cinema Victoria stands as an act of resistance and generosity. Closed since 1975 and lacking formal heritage protection, both buildings were at risk of disappearing to speculation.
The firm fadg has returned dignity to these spaces with a meticulous intervention—one that not only restores façades and historical elements but also rebuilds collective identities. Woodwork, metal fittings, stained glass, signage… all have been recovered or reinterpreted with care and rigour. A project that not only preserves, but transforms—not freezing the past, but activating it for today’s city.
Restoration Award
Authors: fadg estudio.
Promoter: ALDI Supermercados Canarias.
Photography: Flavio Dorta.
Conference and Exhibition Centre, Mérida
More than two decades after its construction, the Mérida Conference Centre remains a benchmark of balance, monumentality and enduring relevance. Positioned between the Guadiana River and the historic city, the building orchestrates a complex cultural programme with architecture that blends restraint and symbolism.
Its landscaped plaza, alternating stripes of paving and vegetation, its dialogue with nearby bridges, and its firm integration into the landscape make it a work that doesn’t age but matures. A demonstration of how architecture, when well grounded in its place, can withstand time with elegance—retaining all its power to move.
Award for Permanence
Authors: Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos.
Promoter: Junta de Extremadura.
Photography: Fernando Alda.
Renaturalisation of urban waterways, Santa Cruz de Tenerife
Spanish Urbanism Award (ex aequo)
Author: Rodrigo Vargas González.
River Manzanares restoration, Madrid
Spanish Urbanism Award (ex aequo)
Autores: Alday Jover arquitectura y paisaje.
Two complementary visions of a single gesture: restoring water to its generative role in urban life. In Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the renaturalisation of waterways is part of an ecological and participatory planning strategy, capable of regenerating degraded areas and reconnecting the city with its landscape. In Madrid, the restoration of the Manzanares amplifies ecosystem services, improves air quality and creates green infrastructures that invite residents to inhabit the river once again.
Both projects understand urbanism not as imposition but as a tool for mediation between nature, people and the future. Water is not merely a resource—it is metaphor, memory and possibility.
Taken together, the Architecture Awards 2025 not only celebrate exemplary works—they reveal a vision of architecture as a transformative force. A discipline that heals, regenerates and connects. That looks to the present without fear and traces, from hope, the outlines of a more just, more liveable, and more human future.
Sources: Architecture Awards 2025 and Pati Nuñez Agency.
