The final of the Mies van der Rohe Prize, the official architectural award of the European Union, selected five objects out of forty that made up the "short list". In April, the jury will visit all of them and determine the best, as well as look for a winner for the award for emerging architects. The winners will be announced at the end of the same month, the awards ceremony will take place on May 7, 2019 in the Barcelona pavilion of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and from May 9 to 19, open days will be held in the buildings of the winner, four finalists and the winner of the "youth" award.
The jury noted that all five structures on the final list allow people to use them in different ways, without any given scheme. About the renovation of Skanderbeg square in the center of Tirana
we wrote in detail here (authors 51N4E, Anri Sala, Plant en Houtgoed and iRI), as well as about the reconstruction of the post-war social housing complex in Bordeaux: each of the 530 apartments received a new multifunctional space along the facade, which also filled the interior with light (Lacaton & Vassal, Frédéric Druot Architecture and Christophe Hutin Architecture).
Caritas Psychiatric Center by architects de vylder vinck taillieu in Melle near Ghent - reconstruction of the building of the historic hospital for the mentally ill. That project was ahead of its time: each department received its own "villa", a green space was created between them. Decades later, despite the unchanged function, the "villas" began to be demolished one by one, replacing them with modern buildings. The same should have been done with the heroine of this project, but the newly appointed director stopped work and created a group to develop a new strategy.
As a result, an architectural competition was held, and the winners, de vylder vinck taillieu, rendered the already partially dismantled "villa" as a found object and mothballed it. For the client's connection with the park, a portico was added - like all other "villas", but not in historicizing forms. In addition, the building was opened to the outside as much as possible. The result is a new public space in a constant process of transformation - for communication - and inspiration, as the authors say - the clinic staff.
The auditorium and congress center in Placencia of selgascano architects is a multifunctional building on the border of the city and nature: with two auditoriums, exhibition spaces, a restaurant. The building spot is minimized in order to preserve the environment, and in order to reconcile the man-made and the natural (that is, a 17-meter height difference between the embankment and the ground level, a bright orange bridge leading to a "gorge" of the same color is thrown. and a polymer shell are designed, among other things, to attract the attention of motorists: there is a highway nearby.
The Terrassenhaus (Lobe Block) in Berlin, designed by Brandlhuber + Emde, Burlon and Muck Petzet Architekten, offers its residents a wide variety of possibilities to use the same spaces. Now there is a gallery, art workshops, coworking spaces and apartments, but tomorrow everything may change.
