Bart Lens, the renowned architect and designer, received the Lifetime Achievement Award; a prize that is only destined for a designer or design studio that has been active for at least 30 years and has had both national and international impact on an economic, social and cultural level.
Through his architecture, Bart Lens hopes to have an impact on our living environment. Besides buildings, he designs the kinds of objects with which we surround ourselves. Bart Lens transforms things which already exist. As a part of the creative process, he observes how people experience their environment and how they occupy space. He is drawn ever closer to the materials, with the traditional ways of working them becoming ever more important. With this emphasis, Bart Lens brings sensitivity and atmosphere to a substantial part of the overall living environment.
The jury was appreciative of this vision and logical approach and concluded that he had developed a particularly well balanced body of work. That is not all, however. In his assignment for Bokrijk he became an ambassador for traditional crafts heritage through the Bokrijk brandmerkt project. In this project he unites the present, past and future of craftsmanship in a single narrative, by bringing together the tradespeople and designers of today and tomorrow. For the jury, this was the deciding factor.