Frida Escobedo win the 2024 Charlotte Perriand Award

Mexican architect Frida Escobedo has scooped the French Le Prix Charlotte Perriand for 2024. The honor, handed out annually by the Créateurs Design Awards (CDA) in memory of the well-known French architect and designer, pays attention to Escobedo for: "her daring concepts, visionary approach, and profound impact on the field".

Escobedo's "work exemplifies the qualities that this award seeks to recognize: boldness, innovation, and a commitment to shaping the future of design."

Co-founder of the Créateurs Design Association, Yuri Xavier.

Frida Escobedo portrait 2021. Photograph by Karla Lisker.

Frida Escobedo is the third-ever laureate of the annual prize, otherwise known as the Charlotte Perriand Award (it was kickstarted in 2021 to honor the legacy of French architect), which spotlights trailblazers in the field of architecture and design.

Escobedo was born in Mexico City in 1979. She studied architecture at the Ibero-American University before completing her master's at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

In 2006, she set up her eponymous Mexico City-based studio Frida Escobedo, where she has developed the varied oeuvre for which she is known today.

"To find myself acknowledged by this remarkable jury is an honor that resonates deeply within me. It serves as a testament to the enduring legacy of Charlotte Perriand, a legacy I am humbled and overjoyed to perpetuate," said Frida Escobedo.

And adds: "In a field dominated by men, Charlotte Perriand created her own path: one that was fearlessly innovative yet deeply rooted in the belief that all beings have the right to beauty, comfort, and functionality. She shaped the world through her vast production of work while building a constellation of friends and colleagues, teaching us that collaboration is one of the most fundamental practices in the architectural discipline. Her multifaceted body of work defies a single classification, yet her experimentation seems to follow certain threads that anchor her curiosity to her surroundings (the places she lived in, the culture and history) and her personal history."

The award is part of a wider family of awards awarded by Créateurs Design, covering architecture, interiors, and exhibition design. Nominations for all of those categories are currently open for submission, and winners will be announced at a dedicated ceremony in Paris in early 2024, the same event at which Escobedo will officially collect the gong from him.

La Tallera by Frida Escobedo. Photograph by Rafael Gamo

Serpentine Pavilion 2018, designed by Frida Escobedo, Serpentine Gallery, London (15 June – 7 October 2018). Frida Escobedo, Taller de Arquitectura. Photography by 2018 Rafael Gamo

Serpentine Architecture 2018. Frida Escobedo in conversation

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Frida Escobedo

Frida Escobedo López (b. 1979, Mexico City) founded her practice in 2006, after four years as co-director of the architectural firm Perro Rojo. Her award-winning work has focused mainly on reactivating urban spaces that are considered to be residual or forgotten.

In 2004 she was awarded the Scholarship for Young Creators by the National Fund for Arts and Culture (FONCA) and in 2008 she was selected by Herzog & de Meuron as one of the architectural studios to participate in the Ordos 100 Project in Inner Mongolia, China. In 2009, she was a winner of the Young Architects Forum, organised by the Architectural League of New York. In 2013, she was selected as one of the three finalists for the Architecture programme at the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative and was nominated for the Arc Vision Prize for Women and the Iakov Chernikhov Prize. In 2014, she was selected as a finalist for the Designs of the Year at the Design Museum in London and was nominated for the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize of the Illinois Institute of Technology. In 2014, she won the Ibero-American Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism Prize (IX BIAU) in Rosario, Argentina. In 2017, she received the Emerging Voices Award by the Architectural League of New York.

Charlotte Perriand

Charlotte Perriand (Paris, 24 October 1903 - Paris, 27 October 1999, Paris, France) has been known through her collaborations with Le Corbusier and Fernand Léger. However, at a time when it was rare for a woman to be an architect, designer and artist, Perriand's career spanned three quarters of a century and spanned places as diverse as Brazil, Congo, England, France, Japan, French New Guinea, Switzerland, and Vietnam.

Between 1920 and 1925 she attended the Ecole de l'Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs, where she studied furniture design. She also attended classes at the Grande Chaumière Academy from 1924 to 1926. Frustrated by the approach based on craftsmanship and the Beaux-Arts style defended by the school, Perriand moved away from anything of a traditional nature.

She became known at the age of 24 with her Bar sous le Toit made of chromed steel and anodized aluminum which was presented at the Salon d'Automne in 1927. Shortly thereafter she began her journey of more than ten years together with Pierre Jeanneret and Le Corbusier. In 1927 she established her first studio of her own.

She collaborated with Le Corbusier on numerous architectural projects, designing the equipment for different dwellings such as the villas La Roche-Jeanneret, Church en Ville-d'Avray, Stein-de Monzie and the Villa Savoye, as well as the interiors of the Swiss Pavilion in the University City and the Shelter City of the Armée du Salut, both in Paris. She also worked with him on the definition of the minimum cellule (1929).

In 1937 Charlotte Perriand left Le Corbusier's studio and turned her attention to more traditional materials and more organic forms. She devoted herself to research in terms of prefabrication of modulated dwellings in which she collaborated with Jean Prouvé. Perriand's collaborations multiply throughout her career, working with architects such as Lucio Costa, Niemeyer, Candilis, Josic & Woods.

Her relationship with Le Corbusier did not end there, as she would collaborate with him again after the war, developing the first prototype of the integrated kitchen for the Marseille Room Unit.

The project where all her previous explorations on prefabrication architecture, standardisation, minimum cell, industrialisation and materials come together was the winter complex of Les Arcs in the French Savoy. Between 1967 and 1982, Perriand designed and built the three ski resorts of Les Arcs, located at an altitude of 1600, 1800 and 2000 metres, where 18,000 people had to be accommodated. The initial idea was to work with the grouping of minimum cells.