Spanish architect Fernando Menis’s Holy Redeemer Church and Community Centre in La Laguna, Tenerife, has been crowned World Building of the Year at the 2025 World Architecture Festival (WAF), giving Spain the top prize at the industry’s most prestigious global awards.
Landmark Win For Spanish Architecture
The Holy Redeemer Church and Community Centre of Las Chumberas was selected as the overall winner from hundreds of finalists presented over three days at WAF 2025, held at the Miami Beach Convention Center in Florida. The project, designed by architect Fernando Menis, stood out to an international jury for its ability to combine religious space, civic infrastructure and social catalyst in one coherent architectural statement.
The World Building of the Year award is considered WAF’s top honour, reserved for one completed building judged to have achieved exceptional architectural, social and environmental impact. This year’s decision positions contemporary Spanish architecture – and particularly the Canary Islands – firmly on the global design map.
A Church As Urban Catalyst
Located in Las Chumberas, a neglected peripheral neighbourhood of La Laguna on Tenerife, the Holy Redeemer complex has been conceived as a catalyst for urban renewal rather than a stand‑alone religious object. The development brings together a church, a community centre and a public square, creating a multifunctional social hub for a fragmented residential landscape of aging housing blocks and underused open spaces.
Jurors praised the project for stitching together the surrounding district and providing residents with a dignified civic heart where none existed before. By consolidating worship, cultural activities and everyday community use, the building is designed to be active throughout the week, not only on religious feast days or weekends.
Sculpted Forms, Light And Materiality
The church is characterised by a powerful sculptural form and a carefully choreographed use of natural light, elements that have become hallmarks of Menis’s work. The material palette is deliberately restrained, with a focus on concrete and wood that allows pattern, volume and light to define the atmosphere of the interior spaces.
Inside the chapel, a warm wooden ceiling, flooring, benches and altar create a grounded, earthly character that contrasts with the more austere exterior shell. Openings and fractures in the envelope modulate daylight to produce a dynamic play of light and shadow, intensifying the spiritual experience while maintaining visual dialogue with the surrounding neighbourhood.
Community Centre And Public Square
Beyond the main worship space, the complex incorporates a fully fledged community centre designed to host educational programs, social services, cultural events and meetings for local associations. These auxiliary spaces are arranged to open directly onto a new public square, turning the project into a porous, welcoming threshold between private devotion and public life.
The square itself operates as an outdoor living room for the district, accommodating markets, festivals and informal gatherings that extend the building’s social reach. This integration of sacred and secular functions was a key factor in the jury’s decision, with judges highlighting the project’s ability to respond to the specific needs of its community rather than imposing a purely iconic object.
Multiple Honours At WAF 2025
The Holy Redeemer Church and Community Centre was already a major contender at WAF even before taking the top prize, having secured victory in the Civic and Community category in the Completed Buildings section. It was also recognised as Small Project of the Year, underscoring how modest scale can still deliver global‑level architectural impact.
These category wins helped propel the project into the final round of live judging, where shortlisted category champions compete head‑to‑head for the World Building of the Year title. After on‑stage presentations and scrutiny from an international panel of more than 160 jurors, the Spanish church emerged as the overall winner.
A Festival Of Global Competition
WAF 2025 convened more than 460 finalist projects from around the world, which were presented through live crit sessions across Completed Buildings, Future Projects and Interiors. Category winners ranged from schools and housing schemes to museums, hospitals and experimental proposals, reflecting the breadth of contemporary architectural practice.
Alongside the main awards, the festival also conferred special prizes such as Best Use of Timber, Best Use of Natural Light and Best Use of Colour, highlighting technical and material innovation. Against this competitive backdrop, the selection of a socially driven, community‑focused religious complex as World Building of the Year signalled a clear emphasis on civic responsibility and urban repair in today’s architectural discourse.
Recognition For Fernando Menis
For Fernando Menis, whose practice has long explored expressive concrete forms and context‑sensitive interventions in the Canary Islands and beyond, the WAF recognition marks a career milestone. His earlier works in Tenerife, including public spaces and cultural buildings, had already drawn international attention for their fusion of rugged materiality and landscape‑aware design.
The Holy Redeemer Church’s success at WAF is expected to further elevate Menis’s profile and highlight the role of smaller regional studios in shaping the global conversation on architecture. It also reinforces Tenerife’s position as a laboratory for contemporary design, where challenging topography and social contrasts demand inventive, context‑driven solutions.
A Model For Faith And Public Life
Beyond the awards circuit, the project is being framed as a model for how religious architecture can address pressing urban and social questions. By weaving together worship, social infrastructure and public space, the Holy Redeemer Church and Community Centre proposes a renewed role for sacred buildings as engines of integration in fragmented cities.
As Las Chumberas residents gradually adopt the complex as a focal point of daily life, the church’s impact will be measured not only in design accolades but in its capacity to foster community resilience and belonging. For WAF jurors, that blend of architectural ambition and social purpose is precisely what made this Spanish church the standout building of 2025.
