Winner: Cultural building of the year 2022 and Winner: Architecture project of the year 2022. Ahmadreza Schricker Architecture North designed the Argo Contemporary Art Museum & Cultural Centre in Tehran, Iran.
This project was led by Ahmadreza Schricker Architecture - North from concept through completion amid the worst unrest Iran has seen in decades. The architects transformed a 100-year-old abandoned brewery in downtown Tehran into 1,850 square metres of a climate-controlled, international contemporary art museum and cultural centre.
The Argo Contemporary Art Museum & Cultural Centre showcases gallery and event spaces, artist residencies, private studios and various public spaces.
Designed during a challenging Iranian socio-political climate spanning the years between 2017 and 2020, this project takes influence from the brutal sanctions, travel bans and incredibly isolating experience of the global pandemic.
With an emphasis on local sustainability and native craftsmen, a "Collective Intimacy" was realised among designers and architects to create this unique space that welcomes visitors to the city of Tehran.
Judges comments: "The complexity of this project exists on so many different levels: it is social, cultural and political. It is a bold adaptive reuse of a historic structure in the centre of Tehran and proposes a purposeful future use, which is inclusive, which respects the past while being forward-looking, and which invites people to enjoy both the architecture and the content of this new cultural space."
Architect: Ahmadreza Schricker Architecture North
