Europe’s Best Buildings. European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture. Mies van der Rohe Award 2022

With a total of 80.000 euros in prize money, the EU Mies Award is the premier European architecture prize. It is a seismograph for architectural developments in Europe and even for the inspirational capacity of the transformative potential of architecture.

Every two years, the ever increasingly popular exhibition ‘Europe’s Best Buildings’ puts the focus on outstanding architecture projects from Europe: developments with visionary character, providing orientation or even serving as manifestos for the development of contemporary architecture.

For the third time, remarkable residential projects have made it into the final round, while for the first time the main prize goes to an educational building: the Town House — Kingston University in London, by Grafton Architects from Dublin. The outstanding architecture creates a distinctive atmosphere for studying, dancing, meeting up and sharing experiences. The open structure and the interlocking mesh of volumes convey a feeling of being in one continuous spatial structure. The winner of the award for Emerging Architecture 2022 is the La Borda cooperative housing complex by the Lacol collective in Barcelona, currently the tallest wooden building in Spain. Among the finalists are the Frizz23 cultural commercial building group in Berlin-Kreuzberg, by Deadline (Britta Jürgens & Matthew Griffin); Railway Farm in Paris, by Grand Huit and Melanie Drevet Paysagiste, where social housing is combined with agricultural production; the renovation and extension of the Z33 House for Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture in Hasselt, Belgium, by Francesca Torzo; 85 social housing units in Cornellà de Llobregat, Spain, by peris+toral.arquitectes. The finalist of the Emerging Prize is the conversion of the 1960s Enrico Fermi School in Turin by BDR bureau.

The distinguished jury, chaired by Mexican architect Tatiana Bilbao and which included the Austrian architect Georg Pendl, selected a total of 40 projects for the exhibition from over 500 nominations in 41 countries. These include five projects from Austria: Neustift school campus in the Stubaital valley, by fasch&fuchs; Neue Galerie and Kasematten, by Bevk Perovic Arhitekti; the Stadthaus conversion and extension in Linz, by mia2 Architektur; Gleis 21 construction group project, by einszueins architektur; Atelierhaus C21, by Werner Neuwirth.

An exhibition by the Fundació Mies van der Rohe, Barcelona and Creative Europe at the Architekturzentrum Wien.