Our Pre-Jury members are responsible for the selection of our nominees and the project texts in our Brick 26 Book
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Pre-Jury 26
Wojciech Czaja, AT
Journalist, Author
Wojciech Czaja, born in Ruda Śląska (Poland) in 1978, studied architecture at the Vienna University of Technology.
Wojciech Czaja works as a journalist, author and moderator for Der Standard and db deutsche bauzeitung, among others. His main topics are architecture, urban culture and real estate management.
He is a lecturer at the University of Art and Design in Linz and at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. In addition, he is a member of the urban development advisory board of the Lower Austrian municipality of Waidhofen/Ybbs. His book publications include Das Buch vom Land (2015), motion mobility (2017, with Matthias Boeckl), Hektopolis. Ein Reiseführer in hundert Städte (2018) and Frauen Bauen Stadt (2021, with Katja Schechtner).
During the Corona lockdown of 2020 he started his photo project Almost. This resulted in a book series and a touring exhibition that has already been shown at the Wien Museum, at the WIR SIND WIEN festival, as well as in Kraków, Zagreb and Vukovar. Instagram @philopolist
© Uwe Strasser
© Uwe Strasser
Maria Gasparian, UK
Maria Gasparian Studio
Maria Gasparian is an award-winning ceramic artist, designer, and architect based in London. Originally from Armenia, she studied architecture in both Armenia and the UK and holds a Master’s in Ceramic Design and a PhD from University of the Arts London.
As the founder of Maria Gasparian Studio, she leads a multidisciplinary practice that merges art and architecture, with a particular focus on integrating ceramics into buildings, urban spaces, and landscapes. The studio’s tactile and colorful street furniture, decorative surfaces, and artworks are designed to create multisensory experiences and contribute to vibrant, socially inclusive environments.
A recipient of the Unilever Sustainability Award, Maria was also awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship to research the manufacturing and applications of architectural ceramics in the USA and Europe. She regularly undertakes public art commissions and contributes articles to craft and architectural publications.
Špela Kuhar, SI
Centre of Architecture Slovenia
Špela Kuhar is an architect, born in 1967. She lives and works in Ljubljana. She works in the field of architectural design, education, exhibition curation and architectural journalism. She is the co-founder of the Centre of Architecture Slovenia, the educational programme Playful Architecture and the brand Gift of Slovenian Architecture. She is a member of the expert group of the architecture centre Galerija Dessa and the organising committee of the international architectural conference Piran Days of Architecture, as well as of the working group Women in Architecture, which works under the auspices of the Chamber of Architecture and Spatial Planning.
With various groups of co-authors, she has received several awards, including the Student Plečnik Award in 1994, the International Piranesi Award in 1996 and the Plečnik Medal for the Velodrom Novo Mesto project. In 1998, the International Piranesi Award for the project of the implementation of rest areas on the cycle paths in the Karst, in 2004, the International Piranesi Award for the Memorial to Postwar Gravesites and in 2013, the Plečnik Medal for the project Playful Architecture. The landscaping of Cankarjev Square and Blaževa Street in Škofja Loka was awarded the Golden Pencil, and the buildings in the Škocjanski Bay Nature Reserve were awarded the first prize for the best wooden building in 2016.
She has authored and co-authored articles and books, most notably Contemporary Architecture of Schools in Slovenia, published in 2008 by Springer Verlag (with Maja Ivanič), Traveling to Your Home (with Irena Kirn) published in 2013 by Rokus Klett (with Irena Kirn). With Robert Potokar they wrote a guide through Ljubljana Let's See the City in 2008, published by Piranesi Foundation (the book was awarded the Best Slovenian Book at the 2008 Slovenian Book Fair), a book Stories of Slovenian Architecture, published 2020 and a guidebook Slovenia Personally in 2023, both published by Beletrina Academic Press. She is also the co-author of three manuals in the Playful Architecture programme.
© Robert Potokar