The seven finalists for this year’s edition of the Mies van der Rohe Award have been revealed and include a Czech art gallery, an urban space in southern Sweden and a copper-clad convent in France.
The nominated projects include five architecture finalists and two emerging finalists from six different countries.
In the architecture category, the nominees include two educational projects – The Study Pavilion on the campus of the Technical University of Braunschweig in Germany by Gustav Düsing & Max Hacke and The Reggio School in Spain by Andres Jaque’s Office for Political Innovation.
It also includes two transformations of historic buildings. These are the adaptive reuse of a slaughterhouse that was turned into an art gallery in Ostrava, the Czech Republic, by KWK Promes and the Rebirth of the Convent Saint-François in Sainte-Lucie-de-Tallano, France, by Amelia Tavella Architectes.
The Rebirth of the Convent Saint-François is a project involving the renovation and extension of a 15th-century convent with a perforated copper volume.
Häge in Lund, Sweden, by Brendeland & Kristoffersen Architects is the fifth finalist in the architecture category. The design features an enclosed garden, as well as a corten-steel pavilion.
The two emerging finalists this year were the Gabriel García Márquez Library in Barcelona, Spain, by SUMA Arquitectura and the Square and Tourist Office in Piódão, Portugal, by Branco del Rio.
All seven finalists were chosen for their inclusivity and possibility to become “global European models”.
“The jury considers that the seven finalist works encourage and become references for local city policies which can become global European models, because they all create high-quality inclusive living environments,” the jury said.
“Most of them transform and improve the conditions of rather small communities in places that had gone through different processes of oblivion: former industrial areas and small rural villages. Those works in bigger cities are implemented in rather peripheric areas, building strong associations with the existing neighbourhoods.
The jury was chaired by architect Frédéric Druot and also included architect Martin Braathen, architect Sala Makumbundu, CEO of consulting company BSFY Adriana Krnáčová and founder of Njiric+ Arhitekti Hrvoje Njiric.
The winners for both the architecture and emerging categories be announced on 25 April 2024 during an event at CIVA (Centre for Information, Documentation and Exhibitions on the city, architecture, landscape and urban planning) in Brussels.
The Mies van der Rohe Award is given out by the European Commission and the Fundació Mies van der Rohe.
In 2022, the architecture award was given to RIBA Gold Medal Award-winning studio Grafton Architects, making it the last UK winner as the country is no longer eligible to take part after leaving the European Union.
Previous award winners also include a social housing revamp in France (2019 and Barozzi Veiga’s Szczecin Philharmonic Hall in Poland (2015).
