Architectures on the waterfront

Waterfronts: Urban areas by the water. City fragments on the border between the urban fabric and the body of water of a river or the sea. Spaces traditionally occupied by port and industrial activities that, due to the relocation of these uses in more distant urban areas, have undergone urban regeneration projects that have changed not only the shape and functions of the waterfront but, in reality, the image and appearance of the city itself. Francesc Muñoz 

Port spaces constitute one of the territories where the transformation of the European city has shown more intensity in recent decades. The models, images, drawings, texts and audiovisual materials of the collection of the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award, tell the particular stories of these architectures that build new places of relationship with water. 

In four occasions, the jury has chosen works on the waterfront as prize winners, key pieces in the urban development of coastal or river areas in cities such as Donostia/San Sebastian, Oslo, Reykjavik and Paris. The exhibition “Architectures on the Waterfront”, displayed in the Maritime Museum of Barcelona in 2019 and alter in Shanghai’s SUSAS in 2023, highlighted works in the urban contexts of these cities and others such as Amsterdam, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Lisbon, Marseille or Rotterdam, where several interventions of great architectural quality converge. These works have managed to redirect what geographer Francesc Muñoz defines as urbanalization, the transformation of the city that banalises urbanism and that obviates the particularities of each place. Complementarily, there were also works that in a more isolated way and located in smaller-scale cities or more peripheral contexts, share this same intention. 

The catalogue of the exhibition gathers all the exhibited works and presents nine texts connected with the urban contexts and architectures of these nine highlighted European cities. The sequence of articles is sorted by their first date of publication, starting with Barcelona and Near Water, specially written or this catalogue, and finishing with The Waterfront of North Amsterdam: Atmosphere and Ambition, written ten years ago on the occasion of an architectural competition. Leading this compilation, we can read the article Anatomy of urbanalitzation: European waterfront architecture in which Francesc Muñoz accurately develops his concept of urbanalitzation. In 2016, the book Contemporary European Architecture ATLAS was published, a first analysis on all the works from the Prize’s archive. This was a first thorough review of the archive built by the Prize since 1988 and which opened the door to other readings and reflections on contemporary European architecture.

PARIS
“History of Paris Rive Gauche 1981 – 2019″ by Soline Nivet, architect, professor and researcher.
Text written on the occasion of the exhibition at Pavillon de l’Arsenal, Paris, 2019.

OSLO
“Five takes on Oslo’s Fjord City” by Halvor Weider Ellefsen,
Architect, PhD, Associate Professor, Oslo School of Architecture and Design
Previously published in Oslo. Learning to Fly, 2018