The finalists of the Mies van der Rohe Award 2022

This year, a total of 40 works are competing for the Mies van der Rohe Award 2022, the official contemporary architecture prize awarded every two years by the European Union and by the Fundació Mies van der Rohe.
On January 17 – from Brussels, Barcelona and the Dubai Expo – the European Commission and the Fundació Mies van der Rohe announced the shortlist of projects selected from the 532 works nominated for the 2022 edition of the award.
A total of 40 projects were shortlisted by the international jury chaired by architect Tatiana Bilbao and composed of experts Francesca Ferguson, Mia Hägg, Triin Ojari, Georg Pendl, Spiros Pengas and Marcel Smets.
In the next phase of the prestigious award, to be announced on February 16 of this year, the five finalists will be selected by the jury from these 40 projects, followed by the naming of the winners in the two categories – architects and emerging architects – set to take place mid-April.

Browsing the list of selected projects, some interesting aspects emerge. First of all, the 40 works shortlisted by the jury were completed in a total of 18 different European countries. The countries with the highest number of selected projects are Austria, France and Spain with 5 architectural works each. These are followed by Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom with 3 works each. In Denmark, Finland, Poland and Portugal, 2 works were selected for each country. Finally, for eight other countries, including Italy, the international jury selected only one work per country.

Moreover, the works chosen are representative of current European architectural trends, for example the ever-increasing focus and attention to the themes of sustainability and circularity, social inclusion and aesthetic research. In particular, once again the shortlisted projects confirm a trend already seen in previous years: the major presence of projects that address the rather relevant collective housing problem. The list, in fact, includes nine projects for residential buildings/complexes, with the housing function also being a factor in the mixed use projects. The second largest grouping is that of cultural buildings, a category that includes public and private buildings such as museums, galleries and art centres, both newly built, as well as recovery and restructuring interventions of the existing cultural heritage. Among these we find a true icon of the Modern Movement: the Neue Nationalgalerie museum for modern art in Berlin, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and restored by David Chipperfield Architects Berlin. This category also includes the Wadden Sea Centre designed by Dorte Mandrup in Ribe (Denmark), as well as the Z33 House for Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture designed by Italian architect Francesca Torzo in Hasselt (Belgium), winner of the first edition of the Italian Architecture Award 2020.
Moreover, six architectural works have been selected for each of the "Mixed Use" and "Educational" categories, with the only Italian project competing for the prize belonging to the latter category: the Scuola Enrico Fermi designed by the BDR bureau, founded by architects Alberto Bottero and Simona Della Rocca, starting from the transformation of a school building dating back to the 1960s. Also in the "Educational" category, we find the Kingston University Town House in London designed by the Grafton Architects studio and already named as winner of the RIBA Stirling Prize 2022. To complete the picture, the shortlist includes 4 projects selected in the "Urban planning" section dedicated to public spaces, 2 in the "Sport and leisure" category and, finally, only one project in the six other prize categories (Commerce, Food & Accommodation, Industrial, Landscape, Office, Social welfare).

(Agnese Bifulco) (Agnese Bifulco)

Images courtesy of Fundació Mies van der Rohe and architects
http://www.eumiesaward.com/
http://www.miesbcn.com/

CAPTIONS
01 40 shortlisted image © Fundació Mies van der Rohe
02 Logo EUMiesAward 2022 © Fundació Mies van der Rohe
03-04 David Chipperfield Architects Berlin - Neue Nationalgalerie refurbishment - photo © Simon Menges
05-06 Dorte Mandrup - The Wadden Sea Centre - photo © Adam Mørk
07-08 Francesca Torzo - Z33 House for Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture - photo © Gion Balthasar Von Albertini
09-10 BDR bureau - Scuola Enrico Fermi - photo © Simone Bossi
11-12 Grafton Architects Town House Kingston University London photo © Denis Gilbert (11), © Alice Clancy (12)