This year, the World Architecture Festival (WAF) turns ten. To mark this milestone for what has been called the ‘Oscars of architecture’, a theme has been announced that reflects one of the most enduring and essential tenets of architecture around the world: ‘Performance’.
During the theme reveal for this year’s festival, programme director Paul Finch remarked: “This year, we will examine the multiple aspects of performance that architecture has to embrace: aesthetic, technical, economic and psychological.
“We will be discussing buildings designed for performance – for example theatres and concert halls – but also the role that buildings play in the life and spectacle of the city itself.”
WAF 2017 will take place from 15 to 17 November in Berlin, after four years being held in Singapore. Fittingly, as the festival celebrates ‘excellence across completed buildings, future projects and landscape projects’, the programme features a separate tour programme of iconic buildings throughout the city, including Frank Gehry’s Pierre Boulez Concert Hall and Radialsystem V, the former pumping station by Gerhard Spangenberg, which has since been repurposed as a venue for contemporary dance and music events.
Entries for architecture projects are being welcomed across thirty distinct categories this year, with the final deadline for submissions on 18 May. There is a discount of 15% for practices that submit three or more projects.
Past winners of WAF have included Zaha Hadid Architects, BIG, Snøhetta, Isay Weinfeld and Foster + Partners.
For more details and information on submissions, visit the website.
