PIRAN DAYS OF ARCHITECTURE

Piran Days of Architecture (PDA) is an international architectural conference with one of the oldest/longest traditions in the world. Initiated by a group of Slovene architects and until 2007 presided by architect prof. Vojteh Ravnikar (1943–2010) it has taken place annually since 1983 at the end of November in the charming, medieval Slovene coastal town of Piran. Since 2008, it has been organized by the next generation of Slovene architects under the leadership of architect Maja Ivanič.

The aim of the conference is to evaluate the social architectural situation and to present the most progressive and innovative ideas of contemporary architectural and spatial production which respect geographical and cultural context to keep cultural identity and divesity.

Many world renowned architects have lectured at the conference: Friedrich Achleitner, Boris Podrecca, Heinz Tesar, Luigi Semerani, Gino Valle, Eduardo Souto de Moura, Alvaro Siza Vieira, Peter Zumthor, Enrique Miralles, Sverre Fehn, Kenneth Frampton, David Chipperfield, Wang Shu, Bijoy Jain among others. Several of them were latter recipients of prestigious international architectural awards such as Pritzker Prize, Mies van der Rohe Award, Venice Architectural Biennale Lion.

PDA conference is traditionally accompanied by several architectural events. The most important is the international exhibition for the prestigious Piranesi Award.

PIRANESI AWARD

The Piranesi Award is the first Slovene international architectural award. Created as part of the Piran Days of Architecture international conference it was first conferred in 1989 to architect Bogdan Bogdanovic for the Dudik Memorial Park in Vukovar, Croatia. It is named after the 18^th century Italian artist and architect Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778), whose family roots are from Piran. It awards the best architectural realizations that have been created in the last two years in the territory of Central European countries: Austria, the Czech Republic, Greece, Croatia, Italy, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia. In 2018, Piranesi Award was joined by Serbia, in 2019 by Bosnia and Herzegovina and in 2020 by Montenegro.

The projects presented at the Piranesi exhibition, are selected and nominated at the end of October by the national selectors of the abovementioned countries. Each selector can propose five projects.

Part of the exhibition for Piranesi Award is also an international student exhibition, at which european architectural faculties – Graz, Spittal, Vienna, Banja Luka, Sarajevo, Split, Zagreb, Thessaloniki, Budapest, Pescara, Trieste, Podgorica, Bratislava, Ljubljana, Maribor, Belgrade, Novi Sad, Kragujevac and AA London – present two projects according to the selection of student selectors.

For Piranesi Award compete around 55 architectural realizations and 38 student projects. The distinguished Piranesi Award, two Piranesi Honorable Mentions and one Piranesi Student's Honorable Mention are selected by an international jury consisting of annual PDA conferencing lecturers and conferred by the honorary sponsor of the PDA Conference.

Piranesi has been awarded various projects of different sizes and programs, but the focus of the award remains on the relationship of contemporary architecture to the natural and cultural context.

PDA FOUNDERS

PDA BOARD OF HONOR

mayor of Piran Municipality
Matej Blenkuš
Ramon Bosch
Peter Gabrijelčič
Sonja Ana Hoyer
Andrej Hrausky
Jurij Kobe
Janez Koželj
Tomaž Krištof
Ranko Novak
Boris Podrecca
Črtomir Remec
Branko Silađin
Metka Sitar
Marjan Vrabec
Giovanni Vragnaz