Publication of the Luis Ferreira Alves Prize 2025 presented at ArtsLibris reinforces the role of architectural photography as a contemporary critical practice
The publication Luis Ferreira Alves Prize | 2025 Edition was presented on May 31st at the Speakers’ Corner of ArtsLibris, part of the ARCOlisboa 2026 program, in a session led by Pedro Leão Neto, architect, editor and coordinator of the work. The session brought together professionals in the field and friends of the project, and also included the presence of Henrique Schreck, representing panoramah! – Jofebar Portugal, one of the strategic partners of the Luis Ferreira Alves Prize. The session provided a moment for attentive and participatory dialogue around the relationships between photography, architecture, publishing and contemporary visual culture.
The conversation took as its starting point the publication edited by scopio Editions in partnership with the Spanish publisher Turner, a bilingual edition with international distribution that brings together the works distinguished in the first edition of the prize, accompanied by critical essays and reflections on the role of the image in the construction of contemporary architectural thought.
More than just presenting a book, the session sought to reflect on the growing importance of photographic publishing as a space for research, preservation, and circulation of knowledge. In a context dominated by the speed of digital images and their rapid obsolescence, the relevance of the book as an object of duration, capable of promoting a slower, more critical, and in-depth relationship with photography, was highlighted.
Throughout the presentation, the legacy of Luis Ferreira Alves was also remembered, whose work continues to be an unavoidable reference in Portuguese architectural photography. His ability to look at architecture beyond its formal dimension, valuing the context, atmosphere, and human experience of the built space, was at the origin of the creation of the prize and remains one of its main inspirations.
The publication also allowed for a revisiting of the photographic projects distinguished in the inaugural edition of the prize, revealing an international panorama marked by common concerns related to housing, urban transformation, memory, identity, and territorial inequalities. The series gathered in the book highlight the diversity of contemporary approaches to architectural photography, understood not only as a documentary record, but as a critical instrument for observing and interpreting reality.
The presentation was also an opportunity to emphasize the international reach achieved by the Luis Ferreira Alves Prize, which in its first edition received 1495 entries from 99 countries, confirming the vitality and relevance of architectural photography as a field of creation, research, and cultural reflection.
Following its presentation in Barcelona in November 2025, the publication's presence at ArtsLibris and ARCOlisboa reinforces the project's international projection and consolidates the Luis Ferreira Alves Prize as a benchmark platform for the promotion of contemporary architectural photography, simultaneously contributing to the appreciation of Luis Ferreira Alves' legacy and to the critical debate on ways of representing, understanding, and inhabiting built space.
