For the eighth consecutive year, the Building Arts Awards, endowed with €40,000, have been granted to four outstanding craftspeople. The award ceremony took place at the Museo de América, in Madrid. The Building Arts Awards are organized by the Traditional Building Cultures Foundation with the collaboration of INTBAU Spain, the Ministry of Culture and Sports and the CSCAE.
The awards are divided into four categories: masonry and stonework, carpentry, finishing and other traditional construction work, and glass and metal work.
The first category, which bears the name of Rodrigo de la Torre in tribute to a master who stood out among our country’s stonemasons and who was also awarded in the past, includes arches and vaults, vaulted stairs, stone carving and other masonry and stonework. The jury decided to give this award to Sebastián Pérez Gómez, from Fuentes de Andalucía in Seville province, a master mason and brick carver.
The second category covers wooden roofs, ceilings and structures, furnishings, muqarnas, woodturning, woodcarving, doors and windows carpentry, and other wood works. The award in this eighth edition was for the master carpenter Max Rutgers, who works in the Alto Ampurdán region of Girona province.
The third category includes tiles, mosaics, plasterwork, scagliola, sgraffito, decorative flooring and other finishes. The award in this category went to Julio Barbero, a builder from Ávila specialised in lime renders and an outstanding master of the sgraffito technique.
The fourth category focuses on forgework, ironwork, stained glass windows and other traditional metal and glass works. The awardee on this occasion was the master blacksmith Friedrich Bramsteidl, who in Mazonovo at Santa Eulalia de Oscos has revived in Spain the practice of forge work using a water-powered hammer.
Moreover, to help give continuity to the work they do, the jury selects one or more of the four award-winners to receive additional financial support for the training of an apprentice over one year. The apprentice, for his/her part, also receives financial support during the apprenticeship.
To deliver this training, the jury selected the master mason Sebastián Pérez Gómez.
