# Architect Jorge Luis Suárez obtains the Golden Trezzini award

**Date:** 03/15/2023

In 2021, when Jorge Luis Suárez Alfonso was instructed to develop a medium-complexity building—a media library, specifically—while in his second semester of third year at the Faculty of Architecture of the Technological University of Havana José Antonio Echeverría (CUJAE), he never thought the project would reach the Golden Trezzini Awards for Architecture and Design.

That same year, his namesake and colleague, Jorge Luis Veliz Quintana, stood out among the best urban planning projects in the competition, with the Sivri apartment building, along with other independent projects by Cuban architects, many of whom have emigrated from the Island.

There are few Cubans who have participated in this important competition, which beyond being a competition, is an excellent platform to see how architecture and design are doing in the world. And, above all, to discover new talent.

You should know that the Golden Trezzini Awards for Architecture and Design bear the name of Domenico Trezzini (1670-1734), considered the first architect of St. Petersburg, born in Switzerland. They have been held since 2018, with the support of the Representation Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation in St. Petersburg, the Embassy of Russia in Switzerland, the Embassy of Switzerland in Russia, the General Consulate of Switzerland in St. Petersburg, the Union of Architects of Russia, the Union of Renovators of Russia, and the State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering of St. Petersburg (SPbGASU), among others.

Suárez Alfonso, the young Cuban architect and professor at CUJAE, yesterday received an email with the news. He obtained an "Honorable Mention" at the Golden Trezzini Awards in the category 'Best Building or Installation Project by Student' with «The Advanced Media Library of Regla — ReAdMe».

We traveled back in time, when COVID-19 cases were increasingly rising, quarantine was generating stress, and Jorge Luis went to his native Pinar del Río, trying to adapt to distance learning and surviving blackouts lasting more than 12 hours. In the midst of all that context, ReAdMe was being created. Something that later brought—and would bring—him much joy.

He dedicated the entire first semester of third year to designing that urban space at the Andrés González dock in Havana Bay. "We had to choose a plot in that urban space in that new urban context and design this media library," Jorge Luis tells me, about this project that was conceived in 2021 but was not applied until 2022.

"The fundamental characteristics of a media library is that it must be a media building, that is, a building for the production, generation, and development of knowledge and the arts. That is what I base myself on and on the entire international panorama of what is happening. Media libraries throughout the world have been implementing themselves for many years as one of the most inclusive buildings that exist."

"I develop two buildings in one same space, in a single block, based on various applications of composition theories and form studies, where one of the buildings is dedicated directly to culture and the other to knowledge, which interact with each other, connect and form a general program based on the main assignment given to us by the faculty," he responds to the question about the characteristics of his project.

From its beginnings, ReAdMe had the context clear. The young man asked himself: "All the values that Regla has as a municipality: the relationships with water, the lack of public spaces, religion, the quantity of independent artists and creators, who have no spaces to produce and develop, based on that, this new program emerges."

On the honorable mention at the Golden Trezzini Awards, he explains that you must have a rating of more than 7 points, out of a total of 10, which is a satisfactory grade. "It is a competition where various architects of great international prestige participate as jury members. It is something wonderful that a Cuban proposal of this type has been recognized. The most interesting thing about my proposal is that it adapts to a very specific context and need and is developed entirely taking into account the codes of Cuban modern movement architecture, applied to my way of doing architecture, to new problems. It is not a proposal where I invent the space, the place."

"That something more modest, more characteristic, more identity-based of Cuban architecture has been recognized is something very cool and that it has been from the academy, that is, a student, is gratifying," he adds.

What challenges does Cuban architecture face in a context of crisis?
"The first challenge is to achieve the legalization of our practice. It is not a competition between private studios and the public sector, nor is it a competition between the government and independent people. All my studies are based on the fact that architecture has a lot to do with politics, economy, management, planning, various spheres. They are the spaces and facilities where people live and where they develop, where people are formed. The greatest current challenge is to achieve unity among us. There is too much to do, even when we think selfishly we say we don't want that, because there will be more competition and we will have less work. That is not true, there is too much to do and rescue in the city. Right now we architects are insufficient, the main idea, I repeat, is to unite us."

"We even have opportunities to make imports through new forms of economic management. We have the necessary knowledge. Sometimes those who don't have what is necessary can join with another and acquire it. I myself, each time I have been learning from my teachers in practice, new doors have opened for me that are interesting. You always have to keep in mind the legacy of our best architecture, the legacy of our modern movement, even of eclecticism. Do not renounce our context, our geographic location," he confesses.

At a project level, he reflects: "Based on the general urban plan, we can develop it as a catalyst for public space, it should be an epicenter for socio-cultural development, even at the country level." That is what ReAdMe intends to be, under the precept of creating more facilities of this type in the peripheral areas of Havana.

Newspaper archives, toy libraries, exhibition spaces, independent and collective creation workshops, meeting cubicles, classrooms, are some of the spaces that this building project in the capital municipality of Regla includes.

Right now, Jorge Luis is immersed in a Local Development Project in the municipality of San Miguel del Padrón, titled Design of Built Habitat of San Miguel DHACOS, to promote, through concrete activities from all sectors, local development in one of the most disadvantaged municipalities of Havana.

Following the line of his thesis work, he aspires to change the sociocultural life of this area, creating a network of facilities of this type in spaces where it is urgent to improve the urban environment and promote culture and knowledge for its inhabitants. At the same time, he teaches at CUJAE and tells his students about the opportunities offered by events like the Golden Trezzini Awards. He invites them to take risks and participate, so that the mark of Cuban architecture continues to be present.