The Grand Prize winning project at the 2018 Wienerberger Brick Awards featured bricks from Petersen Tegl. The Kunstmuseum Basel Extension by Christ & Gantenbein, Switzerland won the Grand Prize as well as the Sharing Public Spaces category award.

Fifty projects shortlisted from about 600 nominations competed across seven categories in the eighth international Wienerberger Brick Awards. Buildings that best exemplified modern and innovative brick architecture were recognised with awards.

The Grand Prize Award winning building, Kunstmuseum Basel featured an innovative combination of Petersen D91 bricks and specially moulded Petersen D11 bricks to a jaw-dropping outcome. Jonathan Sergison, a Wienerberger Brick Award jury member commented, “In terms of its material investigation, it’s powerful in the way that it employs brickwork as the external expression of this big, new building.”

Built as an extension to the existing art museum, the Kunstmuseum Basel is a freestanding building that fits well with the existing structure. Emanuel Christ, partner, Christ & Gantenbein explained that their design intent was to retain the traditional image in the new building since the museum had been in existence for a long time. “It’s a new building, it’s a new face, and still what you see is so familiar. I mean, it is bricks... it is you could say the most banal element, but the way they are put together, the way the bricks are laid, the different colours, the composition that is very smooth, it is brand new.”

As Christoph Gantenbein, partner, Christ & Gantenbein, says “This project is really celebrating the possibilities of brick and it’s celebrating the fundamental qualities of architecture.”

Petersen Tegl also supplied bricks for five award nominees competing for the 2018 Wienerberger Brick Awards.

Petersen bricks are available in Australia through Robertson's Building Products Pty Ltd.