EU Prize for contemporary architecture – meeting in Strasbourg on February 4th
Last meeting of the URBAN Intergroup, which took place on Thursday February 4th at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, was dedicated to the biennial European Union Prize for contemporary architecture/Mies van der Rohe Awards.
This Prize was created in 1988 jointly by the European Commission and the Mies van der Rohe Foundation in Barcelona and is currently supported by Creative Europe Programme. It is the most prestigious architecture prize for finished constructions in Europe.
The presentation of EU Prize for contemporary architecture and its potential contribution to EU policies was made by Monica Urian, European Commission, DG Education and Culture, Creative Europe Programme. At the beginning of the meeting a trailer showed the reflection of architects across Europe about a European Identity in architecture. Afterwards, a big development of the Prize has been presented since its creation. The role of the unique archive with all nominated projects was underlined as well as the whole organizational network. During the discussion MEPs particular appreciated collected data base on contemporary architectural trends and analyses made which shows among others typologies of recently constructed buildings in Europe. In conclusion, participants of the meeting discussed how to further developed this unique EU Prize and link it to the policy making.
In 2015 Prize edition 420 nominated projects were selected from which the Jury members shortlisted 40 of them. Five finalist works competed for the Prize and one Emerginng Architect was chosen. The winner of 2015 edition is Philharmonic Hall in Szczecin, in Poland.