The five finalists for the 2019 EU Mies Award

The 2019 Mies van der Rohe Award, the European Union prize for contemporary architecture, is now in its final stage. On February 13 the European Commission and Fundació Mies van der Rohe announced the five finalists in the 2019 European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award.
Starting in April, the international jury will visit the five works to asses them on site and announce the final winner. The awards ceremony for the main Prize Winner and the Emerging Architect Winner will take place on May 7 in Barcelona’s Mies van der Rohe Pavilion, in the context of a true festival of architecture featuring debates and conferences as well as the opening of the exhibition of the projects that competed for the prize. And, on the basis of the consolidated formula, Eu Mies Architecture Days will be held at the same time as the awards ceremony: special days on which the public will also be able to visit the finalist and award-winning buildings, accompanied by the architects who designed them. This opportunity is of course open only to people who live in, or can travel to, Albania, Belgium, France, Germany and Spain, the countries of origin of the five short-listed projects.
The five projects are very diverse but share the common characteristic of offering flexible, multi-purpose spaces which users can interpret and use in a variety of ways, including different purposes from those for which they were designed.

PC CARITAS, Melle, BE
Architecten De Vylder Vinck Taillieu’s PC CARITAS in Melle, Belgium is a new public space created in an existing construction, an experimental space in which to discover and define possible new ways of living.

Plasencia Auditorium and Congress Centre, Plasencia, ES
The architects of selgascano explain that what they have designed in Plasencia, Spain is not a conventional congress centre, but “sets the stage for a different method and preserves an island of natural earth in the future expansion zone". The architects realise their project is a classic "puddle in the sea", but it’s an important sign of reaction that will definitely serve as an example for future constructions.

Skanderbeg Square - Tirana, AL
A team consisting of 51N4E, Anri Sala, Plant en Houtgoed and iRI designed Skanderbeg Square in Tirana on the basis of reflection about the Albanian capital as a whole. Considering the whole city as an urban ecosystem, Skanderbeg Square now becomes an integral part of it, with a need to optimise its immediate surroundings and links and interconnections with more distant zones.

Terracehouse Berlin - Berlin, DE
The building designed by Brandlhuber+ Emde e Burlon and Muck Petzet Architekten consists merely of an envelope of concrete and plywood including central cores with elevators and bathrooms. Users can divide up the interior spaces themselves as required, overcoming the separation between living and working, between commercial and residential, to create new kinds of spaces.

Transformation of 530 dwellings - Grand Parc Bordeaux - Bordeaux, FR
Lacaton & Vassal architectes, Frédéric Druot Architecture and Christophe Hutin Architecture transformed a 1960s housing development consisting of three buildings containing a total of 530 apartments. They created balconies and winter gardens to transfer the apartments with more daylight, more space and upgraded facilities.

(Agnese Bifulco)

Images courtesy of Fundació Mies van der Rohe www.miesarch.com
photo by: Filip Dujardin, Iwan Baan, Erica Overmeer, David von Becker, Philippe Ruault

---

GALLERY