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Minister for the Environment, Land Planning and Regional Development,
Minister for Public Works, Transport and Communications,
Chairman of Secil,
President of the Society of Architects,
President of the Society of Engineers,
Architect.Nuno Brandão Costa,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Throughout my term of office as President of the Republic, I have had the opportunity to confirm the worldwide relevance of Architecture and of Portuguese Architects.

Architect Siza Vieira, author of the fine building where we are today, was recently awarded, by the Queen of England, with the United Kingdom’s most important prize for Architecture.

Last year’s winner of the Pessoa Prize was also an Architect, João Luís Carrilho da Graça. And last week I was advised that a studio of architecture in Porto, the Impromptu studio, won an international competition organized by the Royal Institute of British Architects.

In my State Visit to Germany I officially opened, in Berlin, an exhibition of Portuguese architecture employed in the design of buildings all over the world. This exhibition, organized by the Society of Architects, properly showed some of the projects carried out by Portuguese architects in such distant places as Mongolia. Portugal can feel proud when realizing that it is possible to find works with a Portuguese signature in all world continents.

Portuguese architecture enjoys in this day and age and extraordinary worldwide reputation. In Portugal and Abroad, Portuguese architects have known how to ally their talent and their creativity, contributing towards the consolidation of a proprietary identity in their work.

I am thus very pleased that I am once again associated to the Secil Prize.

To start with, I congratulate the university graduates whose talent was recognized today. These prizes will surely be an encouraging stimulus for these youths’ careers.

It is anyway laudable that the Secil Prize gives special regard to the work of young architects and engineers at the start of their careers, thus allowing them to assess their real capacity to conform to market demands.

A good university education always presupposes an effective connection to the world outside the universities. Initiatives such as the Secil Universities Prize build bridges between the university and the labour market, thus contributing towards the personal and professional development of recent graduates.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Architect Nuno Brandão Costa, whose work has been recognized in Portugal and abroad, is awarded today the 2008 Secil Prize for Architecture, due to his plan for the Viriato Office Building and Furniture Showroom, in Paredes. By winning this prize he views the recognition of his merit in this specific work, but he equally views his career impelled by the most important Prize for Architecture in Portugal.

I congratulate Architect Nuno Brandão Costa for this additional prize which, in all fairness, he conquered.

Allow me to refer the happy coincidence that Architect Nuno Brandão Costa is also the author of the plans for the future Sidónio Pais Museum, in Caminha, a project of the Caminha Town Council in partnership with the Museum of the Presidency of the Republic. I am certain that this will be a further work of great architectural interest.

A word of appreciation also for the contracting party. Architecture is not a whim. Knowing how to choose architects and approve their plans is a significant contribution towards the change or the renewal of landscapes.

Praise is thus also due to all those who throughout the years have realized that buildings and structures must be appropriate to the needs of the people and of the locations where they stand. And that they allow architects, whether young or experienced, to freely and responsibly develop their work and assert its quality.

I equally want to congratulate the remaining competitors. The plans which I had the opportunity to examine in the exhibition I visited a short while ago are coincident with the extraordinary creativity and maturity which brings worldwide recognition to Portuguese architecture.

I also congratulate SECIL, the Society of Architects and the Society of Engineers for this initiative which, throughout the last 15 years, has known how to recognize the relevance of Architecture and Engineering as well as that of its practitioners, stressing the more significant instances of art, talent and creativity.

To the prize-winners, Sincere Congratulations.