Premio Carlo Scarpa 2024: Espacio Escultórico in Mexico Wins Best Garden

The 2024 Premio Internazionale Carlo Scarpa per il Giardino has been awarded to the Espacio Escultórico, a collective artwork set in the volcanic landscape of El Pedregal near Mexico City. The prize, promoted by Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche since 1990, honors places rich in natural and memorial values. The Espacio Escultórico features a large toothed ring made of concrete prisms, created jointly by university students and citizens, encircling an untouched lava flow. A book by Patrizia Boschiero (coordinator of the prize) and Luigi Latini (president of the scientific committee, professor at IUAV Venice) documents the site's aesthetic power. Other notable sites previously recognized include the Giardini del Castello in Prague, Jardín de Cactus on Lanzarote by César Manrique, the Cave di Cusa in Sicily, the Valle delle Rose in Cappadocia, the Garden of Wild Apple Forests in Kazakhstan, and the Dazhangshan tea gardens in China. The article is authored by Claudia Zanfi, a cultural promoter who founded the GREEN ISLAND program in 2001.