...And finally the Public Place Interior award was given to Pierluigi Piu (Italy) and his design of the Olivomare restaurant (London)...

A quite prestigious prize, the “Russian International Architectural Award 2007”, was assigned last November at Манежe (Manége), in Moscow, a monumental neo-classical style pavilion located just in front of the Kremlin, once devoted to horses dressage and to the Zar’s cavalry officers training, now reconverted into a cultural and exhibition centre.
An internationally formed jury, counting among its members some personalities as like Massimiliano Fuksas, Emilio Ambasz, Belgian Jo Crepen, Mexicans Victor and Ricardo Lagorreta and Japanese Satoshi Okada, has nominated 50 finalists (for two main prize categories: one-family houses and public spaces interiors), mostly Russian and Ukrainians, together with Austrians, Germans, Peruvians, Dutch, Americans, Australians, Spanish, Portuguese, Latvian and Japanese architects and designers. Two were the Italians: the Milanese designer Paola Navone and architect Pierluigi Piu, from Cagliari, Sardinia. Among all competitors were some relevant personalities too, as like Alvaro Leite Siza Vieira (renowned son of Portuguese master Alvaro Siza and winner – thanks to his House Tolo, built on the Portuguese cliff of Lugar das Carvalhinhas – of the first prize for one-family houses projects), Dutch Ben Van Berkel and Spanish architect Carlos Ferrater (author, among others, of a beautiful project for the new high-speed railway station of Florence), all of them having already been awarded in the past with several prestigious international prizes. The prizes for projects inspired by tradition have been assigned to the teams formed by Nina Prudnikova, Pavel Burmakin and Peter Yushin and by Mikhail Soloviev-Petko and Olga Motina. Austrians Roman Delugan and Elke Delugan-Meissl (Delugan Meissl Associated Architects) conquered the prize for the category “apartments interiors”, thanks to their exquisitely minimalist House Ray 1, built in Vienna, while, for “innovation in public spaces interiors”, the Archip trophy has been awarded to Pierluigi Piu (Italy) and his project for Olivomare restaurant (London, U.K.), described on the Sunday Times by critic A.A.Gill as “...the finest dining room I’ve seen since years…”.