The public sculpture series Philosophy in the City has been awarded a Bronze Cube at the prestigious ADC Awards, a global creative industries competition. Installed across five Riga neighbourhoods, the sculptures were created by design studio H2E in collaboration with landscape architecture studio ALPS and prominent Latvian philosophers, on the initiative of Swedbank. Each sculpture interprets a shared basic form — the circle — in a unique way, symbolising the transformative power of ideas.
The ADC Awards is the world’s oldest competition celebrating excellence in the creative industries. It is organised by The One Club for Creativity, and this year marks its 104th edition. On May 14, the Philosophy in the City project won the bronze award in the Architecture, Interior, and Environmental Design category at the awards ceremony in New York.
The project Philosophy in the City, unveiled at the end of last year, consists of five sculptures created by H2E designers Ingūna Elere, Holgers Elers, and Mārtiņš Vītols. The messages embodied in the sculptures are explored through audio stories narrated by well-known Latvian philosophers — Ella Buceniece, Gints Grūbe, Igors Gubenko, Eva Johansone, Paula Lūcija Lejiņa, Māra Rubene, Igors Šuvajevs, and Arno Titovs — as well as historian Rūdolfs Reinis Vītoliņš. The sculptures and stories give form to timeless ideas and values — wisdom, courage, moderation, justice, and responsibility — which, thanks to a donation from Swedbank, now reside in five neighbourhoods of Riga: Āgenskalns, Zaķusala, Pļavnieki, Čiekurkalns, and Sarkandaugava.
«We’re both proud and delighted that these five eternal values, which use philosophy as a starting point for dialogue about societal values and individual responsibility in building a more understanding society, have been recognised on a global level,» says Ingūna Elere, co-founder and lead designer at H2E.
«I’m truly gratified by the international professional community’s recognition of H2E’s outstanding work in giving contemporary material form to timeless values through these educational urban sculptures,» adds project co-author and philosopher Igors Gubenko.
More information about the Philosophy in the City project is available on Swedbank’s website.
The Bronze Cube awarded to Philosophy in the City is not the first ADC Award received by H2E designers — last year, their exhibition de Woldemer at the Valmiera Museum received a Merit Honour from the competition jury.
Viedokļi