2023 RIBA Charles Jencks Award

The Dogma practice, founded in 2002 by Pier Vittorio Aureli, associate professor at the EPFL Architecture Department (ENAC), and Martino Tattara, has been awarded the prestigious Charles Jencks 2023 Prize by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).

Created in 2003 to reward an individual (or office) who has recently made a major contribution to both the theory and practice of architecture, this prestigious prize has distinguished architects such as Peter Eisenman, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron over the years.

Based in Brussels, Dogma focuses on the links between architecture and the city, working on large-scale urban design projects. Their exploration of the relationship between theory and practice continues to have a major influence on the profession, particularly among students, through both the thought process and the representation of architecture.

Dogma is active in offering consultancies to municipalities and agencies concerned with urban planning and architectural issues. Parallel to the design projects, the members of Dogma have intensely engaged with teaching, writing, and research, activities that have been an integral part of the office’s engagement with architecture. In the last years, Dogma has been working on a research by design trajectory that focuses on domestic space and its potential for transformation.

Pier Vittorio Aureli teaches at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) where he directs the laboratory ‘Theory and Project of Domestic Space’. He previously taught at the Architectural Association in London and Yale School of Architecture. Aureli studied at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia IUAV, at the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam and obtained his PhD from the Technische Universiteit Delft. He is the author of many essays and books, including The Project of Autonomy (2008), The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture (2011), Less is Enough (2013), The City as a Project (2014) and the forthcoming Architecture and Abstraction (2023).

Few architects have had a greater influence on students’ thinking and representation over the last 10 years than Dogma. Through teaching, exhibitions, competitions and books, they follow a clear and uncompromising project to dismantle the relationships of architecture and capital.While Dogma have not built many projects, all of their work takes the material construction of buildings seriously, and has implications on the building profession. They are an important counter to the commercialized architectural profession, using their deep knowledge of architectural history and theory, to propose alternative ways for us to live together.