Wins of the Week: BIG & MVRDV

Both BIG and MVRDV are continuing their dominance of the international competition circuit, with each office announcing a major win in the last three days (in addition to a recently rehabbed mustard factory, also by MVRDV).
First, from a Wednesday press release we learn that a Bjarke Ingels-led team comprised of Martha Schwartz Landscape, Buro Happold , Speirs & Major, Lutzenberger & Lutzenberger, and Global Cultural Asset Management has been selected to design a relatively giant (82,000 square foot) cultural complex in Albania. The Albanian government is seemingly taking a “throw it all in a cake pan and call it a day” approach: a Mosque, an Islamic Centre, and a Museum of Religious Harmony will be the major programmatic anchors of the project.

“Albania,” writes the office, “is the crossroads of three major religions: Orthodox Christianity; Catholicism; and Islam. With the recent completion of two new churches, all three religions will now have new places of worship in the heart of Tirana. The complex will not only serve the Muslim community of the city and surrounding areas, but will educate the public about Islamic values and serve as a beacon for religious tolerance.”

BIG’s team won out over Andreas Perea Ortega, Architecture Studio, SeARCH and Zaha Hadid Architects.

 

Next up, MVRDV announced today that they’ve been named the winner of a competition held by Hangzhou’s urban planning bureau to design a 92 million euro China Comic and Animation Museum. Their design, which is clearly based on the “speech balloon,” will total 90,000sf and include “a series of parks, a public plaza, and a 39,000sf expo center.” Construction is planned for 2012.

From MVRDV: “Comics and animations have long been considered a form of entertainment for the younger generations but develop more and more into a sophisticated art form. The initiative for a museum especially for this relatively recent art form creates a platform which will unite the worlds of art and entertainment. By using one of the cartoon’s prime characteristics – the speech balloon – the building will instantly be recognized as place for cartoons, comics and animations. The neutral speech balloon becomes 3d.”