None of the projects, announced this Thursday, are new. However, both renew. This was highlighted by the jury of this edition – chaired by – when evaluating the winning proposal, the Exhibition Palace in Charleroi, in Wallonia (Belgium), which they applauded for combining intelligence and precision to transform a large infrastructure – a convention center from the 1950s – instead of demolishing it. Designed by Brussels architects AgwA and the Ghent studio Jan de Vylder and Inge Vinck, the building is now open to the city. It has become a porous and accessible space invaded, in part, by vegetation. That is, it has been transformed, but it has preserved its character. And its materials. For the jury, this intervention demonstrates how architecture can unleash not only new spaces, but also new social relationships by working with what exists.
In this way, opposed to the blank page, the figure of the architect who highlights the award becomes a guardian of what should not be lost. Also what you should take care of. They don’t just talk about maintaining forms or history. , a complete and civic way of being in the world: recognizing what came before, repairing, maintaining or updating that legacy and, consequently, making that care a new legacy for future generations.
The award, announced in Oulu, the Finnish city of European Capital of Culture 2026, was announced, not by chance, in the Aaltosilo, an old log warehouse that Alvar and Aino Aalto built in 1931 and which today has become a center for the preservation of industrial architecture. That almost century-old concrete building is, like so many industrial buildings, on a cathedral scale. And from that size, and with that history of assuming and representing change, it has become the icon of this year’s European cultural capital. It is an icon that speaks more about references than styles. Therefore, announcing the Mies van der Rohe Prize in this context sends a clear message: Europe is a constructed continent, as well as caring for it, it is urgent not to mummify it. The authors of the five finalist projects have dedicated their audacity and imagination to this. And the two winners.
In the young category (emerging architecture) there is also reuse and rescue. The temporary space for the National Theater of Slovenia, designed by the Vidic Grohar Architekti studio in Ljubljana, has transformed an industrial warehouse from the sixties into a temporary theater. They have done it with low-cost interventions and quick execution. For this combination of audacity and pragmatism, he has been awarded in the young category for “transforming an ephemeral condition into a powerful architectural statement: one that leads to activating the ”. The jury has also highlighted in this work something that is rarely talked about when describing architecture: money. Low-cost interventions stand out when they achieve flexibility and inclusivity in spaces. Thus, the theater-ship displays adaptability as an architectural resource. And budget control, as social responsibility.
That the quality of an award is measured by the audacity of its winners is a fact applicable to any discipline. At stake in the architectural awards is also the lighthouse that illuminates the growth of cities and a compendium of complicated relationships: the path that connects tradition and innovation, the highway that leads from crafts to industry, the priorities that are taught in schools and the thread that connects the economy and the welfare state.
Aware of this framework beyond the buildings, the awards are also understood as messages. As conclusions and even as rectifications. It became that of the European Union, its perspective changed. From valuing unquestionable and radical architectures, they began to seek the radicality of the proposals beyond the image of the building, in the connection with its time and its social context.
Thus, repair, recovery and reuse have become synonymous with contemporary architecture. That is why the other five finalists of this edition follow the direction that takes advantage of limits to propose changes. “Architectural intelligence transforms and adapts what exists to facilitate the coexistence of citizens on the planet,” the jury noted. and give it new life, architecture must learn to relate to uncertainty. “Repairing, replacing, adapting and reconfiguring reveals the potential of architecture to act between permanence and change.”
In the context of uncertainty that the planet is today, the architecture awarded by the European Union speaks from humility. But also from knowledge and respect for what exists. The award ceremony will be held, as is traditional, in the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion in Barcelona, which the Aachen architect and Lily Reich designed for the 1929 Exhibition and, therefore, a building that, in itself, displays an ode to recycling, reuse and innovation. It will be on May 12, within the framework of Barcelona’s activities as World Capital of Architecture.
