Five projects have been selected as finalists of the 2015 EU Prize for Contemporary Architecture- Mies van der Rohe Award. The finalists were selected from a shortlist of 40 projects, and over the next couple of months the jury members will visit each of the finalist projects to evaluate the buildings firsthand and gather information from the people who use them. On May 7, the architects will present their projects to the jury. The winner will be announced the following day at a ceremony at Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion.
See the five finalists after the break.
Established in 1987 by the European Union, the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Fundació Mies van der Rohe – Barcelona, the 60.000€ Mies Van der Rohe award is one of the most prestigious and important awards for European architecture. The prize is awarded biennially to works that have been completed in the past two years. Previous winners have included the Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Centre in Reykjavik, designed by the Danish architectural firm Henning Larsen in collaboration with the Islandic practice Batteríið and the artist Olafur Elíasson, and the Neues Museum in Berlin, designed by David Chipperfield Architects and Julian Harrap.
Ravensburg Art Museum / Lederer Ragnarsdóttir Oei (Ravensburg, Germany)
Built in a historic area, the design for the Ravensburg Art museum integrates the old with the new, fitting “harmoniously and unobtrusively into the historical context of the city.” The building uses recycled bricks from a demolished monastery, creating “a connection between the old buildings and the new construction.” It is also the first museum ever built to meet passive house standards. View the architects' full project description here.
Danish Maritime Museum / BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group (Helsingør, Denmark)
Located between the Kronborg Castle and a new cultural center, the Danish Maritime Museum is built into the dock walls of the harbor where it is located. By placing the galleries below ground, the Danish Maritime Museum leaves the 60-year-old dock walls untouched. The galleries are “arranged in a continuous loop around the dry dock walls,” allowing visitors to “experience the scale of ship building.” The design also features three double-level bridges that connect to different sections of the museum. View the architects' full project description here.
Antinori Winery / Archea Associati (San Casciano Val di Pesa, Florence, Italy)
Located between Florence and Siena in the hills of Chianti, the project aimed to “merge the building and the rural landscape.” As such, the roof of the winery was converted into a space to plant additional vines, and is “interrupted, along the contour lines, by two horizontal cuts which let light into the interior and provide those inside the building with a view of the landscape through the imaginary construction of a diorama.” View the architects' full project description here.
Philharmonic Hall Szczecin /Barozzi / Veiga (Szczecin, Poland)
The design was influenced by the surrounding context and buildings, specifically by the “verticality of the city’s residential buildings, by the monumentality of the upright ornaments of its neo-Gothic churches and the heavy volumes of its Classicist buildings, by the towers that dot its entire skyline and the cranes of its port.” The Philharmonic Hall features large skylights and is clad with glass on the outside, providing a contrast to the surrounding buildings. View the architects' full project description here.
Saw Swee Hock Student Centre / O’Donnell + Tuomey (London School of Economics, London, UK)
Located on LSE’s city centre campus, the Saw Swee Hock Student Centre aims to create “a place of exchange; a spatial bowtie that intertwines circulation routes, splices visual connections between internal and external movement, and pulls pedestrian street life into and up the building.” The building's exterior is clad with bricks in “an open work pattern” that lets light inside during the day and gives the building a glowing effect at night. View the architects' full project description here.
For in-depth coverage on the award and the finalist projects visit our European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture / Mies van der Rohe Award page.
