EK announced five finalists for the Mies van der Rohe Architectural Award

Barcelona/Brussels - This year's prestigious Mies van der Rohe Award has a chance of being won by a psychiatric clinic in Melle, Belgium, a terraced gallery in Berlin, a residential building in Bordeaux, Skanderbeg Square in Tirana, or a congress center shaped like a giant stone in Plasencia, Spain. The five finalists were announced today by the European Commission and the Mies van der Rohe Foundation, which awards this EU prize for contemporary architecture. The winner will be announced at the end of April, and the award ceremony will take place in Barcelona on May 7.

Thus, the project of the Slovak studio GutGut did not make it to the finals, which last month advanced to the narrower selection of 40 buildings. These were selected by a jury from nearly four hundred projects, based on how well they reflect current trends in architecture (focusing on recycling, apartment construction, and culture). None of the 12 Czech projects made it into the forty, although the project for the reconstruction of the former factory in Bratislava advanced there.

The Mies van der Rohe Award is given every two years by the European Union and the foundation named after the pioneer of modern architecture, who is also the author of the Tugendhat villa in Brno. The Mies van der Rohe Award includes a prize of €60,000 (approximately 1.5 million CZK), and there is also a special prize for emerging architects associated with a reward of €20,000 (approximately 520,000 CZK).

The award was first announced in 1988. The Czech Republic has participated in the competition since 1997, but no Czech project has yet won the award.