The Donald Gray Grants for the Building Arts have since 2017 been facilitating the training of apprentices with one of the masters honoured in our Building Arts Awards. The knowledge transmitted by this means, through working and learning hands on with a master of the trade, can scarcely be given continuity through formal education. These scholarships provide financial support both to the master delivering the training and to the apprentice who is to be trained at the former’s workshop and worksites.
These schools have been held annually since 2014 at various Spanish and Portuguese locations (Madrid, Barcelona, the Azores, Cantabria, Navarra, the Alentejo, Seville, etc.). They always revolve around design based on a knowledge and understanding of the local building, architectural and urban design tradition. Hand-drawing, in-situ analysis of the best regional precedents, talks by various expert guests and demonstrations by local master builders serve as a basis for the preparation of new urban and architectural designs taking local tradition as a reference. With an international teaching team, the aim is to introduce the participants, largely young architects and architecture students from the world over, to design methods attuned to creating beautiful and lasting ensembles, better integrated into their existing context and able to leverage and feed back into local building culture.
These workshops are intended to cultivate a knowledge and appreciation of traditional building techniques and to let the general public see the work of the best master artisans that preserve and apply them today. The participants, guided by masters of various traditional building trades, have the chance to experience hands on the work of masons, carpenters, blacksmiths, ceramicists, plasterers and many others.
The Fifth International Conference on Traditional Building, Architecture and Urbanism, organized by the Traditional Building Cultures Foundation, will take place between 15 and 17 November 2024 in Úbeda. The Conference
The new edition of the Iberian Summer School, organized by the Traditional Building Cultures Foundation with the collaboration of INTBAU Spain and INTBAU Portugal, will take place in Arcos de
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
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