"Souto de Moura is a great architect, a great friend and collaborator of Siza Vieira, and a great character. His lecture at the Col·legi was absolutely hilarious. His football stadium in Braga is fantastic, unimaginable in no other location. A little later, we met in Naples while he was overseeing Siza's metro station and I was working on mine.

◻️ In addition to architecture, Eduardo enjoys eating and drinking, so I spent three very entertaining days with him." Oscar Tusquets Blanca

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Jury report for the Premio Década 2007 (Works completed in 1997)

"After carefully visiting the seven selected works, the jury has decided to award the Premio Década of the Fundación Oscar Tusquets Blanca, 2007 edition, to the Urban Design of the Ronda del Mig by Henrich and Tarrasó.

▪️ The decision is supported and justified for the following reasons:

▪️ The Ronda del Mig is a project with a complex programme where, over more than two kilometres, the designers had to condense into a single, cohesive image functions as varied as street, garden, parking, and tunnel. The image is clear and simple (without being simplistic) and is not limited to a linear design. The project addresses and resolves urban requirements and challenges in rhythmic episodes, creating differentiated spaces. The design and details are essential (perhaps not the streetlights), fitting the required scale and avoiding the risk of appearing domestic or fragile. The decision to condense the construction elements and the furniture into a single material, corten steel, gives the project consistency and strength.

▪️ Over these ten years, the work has improved and grown. In these times, the opposite usually happens: here, the metal has oxidised and stabilised, while the trees have grown, casting shadows for those who stop and defining limits for those who pass by.

▪️ Today, this work is highly relevant as it challenges technicians and politicians who disfigure streets and architecture by thinking that traffic can be solved with elevated or open-air underground roads.

▪️ While the project for the Ronda del Mig is not anonymous, it keeps a modest profile, as the city should be: available for the public to make it their own."

Eduardo Souto de Moura

Barcelona, 25 May 2007

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{Photographs of the award ceremony by Rafael Vargas}