The European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture, the Mies van der Rohe Award has just announced the first 449 works competing in its 2022 edition. Selected from 279 cities in 41 countries, the projects have been nominated by European independent experts, the national architecture associations, and the Prize Advisory Committee.
Initiated in 1987 the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award, organized by the Fundació Mies van der Rohe and the European Commission since 2001, is awarded biennially to works completed within the previous two years and exceptionally, this time, 2, 5 years. 449 works, completed between October 2018 and October 2020, are competing for the 2022 Award. Revealed today by the European Commission and the Fundació Mies van der Rohe, the list of nominees includes for the first time architectural works from Armenia, Moldova and Tunisia. This first selection will be joined in September by a new group of nominated projects, finished between November 2020 and April 2021. Reflecting on the current challenges, the new cycle of the prize will announce the Shortlisted works is January 2022, the 5 finalist works in February 2022, and the winner in April 2022.
The 2022 edition of the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award includes works finished during the Covid-19 pandemic, and commissions dating to the 2007-2012 financial crisis. Evaluated during the post-pandemic time, in order for the jury to be able to visit these architectures, the prize has also been “supporting the rethinking and re-planning of Europe […] prioritizing the environment through a cultural project in which design and sustainability are indissociable”.
Noticing an important change in trends, Housing is beating culture. For the first time since 2003, single houses (18,10%) has become the largest group of works, followed by collective housing (14,87%) and education facilities (14,01%), surpassing buildings with specific cultural programs. Collective housing buildings are particularly outstanding in cities such as Barcelona (6), Paris (4) and Riga (3). On another hand, Regeneration keeps advancing with a quarter of the total number of nominees. In fact, 5 of the 7 works from Copenhagen are the result of transformations while in Brussels, 3 of the 5 works are regenerations. The highest number of transformed existing constructions have become cultural buildings (31), followed by Education (18) and Urban Regeneration (13).
There has been an increase of transnational works (10%), in which architects from one country have built in another one or the works have been collaborations between architecture offices, teaming up with local partners. BIG Bjarke Ingels Group (Copenhagen) is the studio with the highest number of nominated works (4), with one of them in Copenhagen (DK) and the other three in Bordeaux (FR), Jevnaker (NO) and Stockholm (SW). It is followed by COBE (Copenhagen) which has works in Copenhagen, Køge and Fredericia, all in Denmark; DO Architects (Vilnius) has works in Vilnius and Klaipėda, all in Lithuania; Grafton Architects (Dublin) have built in Toulouse, Paris and London; and Helen & Hard (Oslo and Stavanger) have two works in Stavanger and one in Oslo, all in Norway.
The EU Mies Award as the resulting work of a strong network of Europeans, shows that quality can be understood in many different ways but that it must always be connected to the present challenges with the environment and make cities and infrastructure more sustainable and resilient. -- Anna Ramos, Director Fundació Mies van der Rohe.
Discover below the list of countries and their most prominent nominated programs, and for the full list of the projects, check the official website.
- Spain: collective housing
- France: collective housing
- Germany: culture
- Belgium: education
- Portugal: single houses
- Italy: collective and single housing, culture and education
- United Kingdom: single houses
- The Netherlands: collective housing
- Poland: collective housing, culture, and urban projects
- Denmark: infrastructures
- Austria: education
- Ireland: culture and education
- Lithuania: single houses
- Slovenia: education and single houses
- Ukraine: education and urban projects
- Greece: single houses
- Hungary: sports and leisure
- Norway: culture
- Czech Republic: commerce
- Croatia: education, food & accommodation and urban projects
- Georgia: collective housing and urban projects
- Latvia: collective housing
- Bulgaria: collective housing and office
- Finland: education and single houses
- Montenegro: single houses
- Romania: collective housing
- Estonia: culture
- North Macedonia: single houses
- Sweden: collective housing
- Cyprus: single houses
- Serbia: mixed-use buildings and single houses
- Slovakia: single houses, funerary and urban projects
- Luxembourg: collective housing, commerce, food, and sport
- Kosovo: collective housing
- Malta: single houses
- Albania: single houses
- Armenia: education
- Bosnia - Herzegovina: government & civic, landscape and single house
- Iceland: culture, single house, and sport & leisure
- Tunisia: office buildings
- Moldova: culture
