Empowering Europe. Arquitectures Catalanes. EUmies Awards 1988-2025
This exhibition starts from the Catalan architectural works nominated for the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture / Mies van der Rohe Awards (EUmies Awards) from 1988 to the present. These projects, built in Catalan territory or by Catalan studios in Europe, have transformed the Catalan territory and have reflected on initiatives and policies that have helped strengthen Europe in various areas, such as social cohesion, ecological challenges, material experimentation, technological innovation and economic growth. This has allowed to promote the tools, resources and opportunities necessary to improve how we live with a holistic vision of boosting the capacity of Catalonia and Europe to face current and future challenges.
From the almost 200 Catalan projects that are part of the EUmies Awards archive, this exhibition presents a selection of 19, which have been winners, finalists or shortlisted by international juries throughout the history of the Prize. These 19 reference architectures are grouped around 5 themes that deal with new models of collective housing; on providing the city with a network of public facilities; on intervening in existing constructions; on the legacy on the occasion of the celebration of major events; and on creating new landscapes or how to intervene in existing ones.
on living in community
Quality housing is fundamental to guaranteeing the well-being of citizens and favouring social cohesion in cities. In recent years, social housing has been a pioneer in experimenting with construction technologies and materials, as well as promoting new typologies that respond to the current needs of the population. This has led private development to transform or build higher quality housing. Innovative proposals such as the La Borda – Cooperative Housing by Lacol in Barcelona, the 85 Social Housing Units in Cornellà de Llobregat by Peris+Toral arquitectes and Fabra & Coats & Social Housing by Roldán+Berengué also allow us to reflect on current regulations and slowly adapt them to current needs.
At European and local level, housing policies focus on tackling the housing emergency by promoting affordable housing, with an emphasis on environmental sustainability. Initiatives such as the European Green Pact or the NextGenerationEU funds foresee large investments in the rehabilitation and construction of sustainable and affordable housing, supported by local programmes that encourage social or cooperative housing projects, promoting inclusion and equity in cities.
on REhabilitating, REusing, RE…
Urban recovery through the renovation of buildings in city centres has become a key strategy for revitalising cities and preserving their architectural heritage. An outstanding example is the transformation of the Collage House in Girona by bosch+capdeferro, where the original building was refurbished to convert it into housing adapted to current needs. Another case is the intervention of BAAS Architecture, in the centre of the Polish city of Katowice, with the project for the Silesia University’s Radio and Television Department, in which the continuity of the existing textures was maintained, guaranteeing the maintenance of the character of the existing public space.
Architecture has a fundamental role in rural activation, contributing to the social, environmental and economic regeneration of areas in danger of depopulation or in decline. Through projects that respect the natural and cultural context, architecture can promote sustainable tourism, encourage local activities and preserve heritage. One example is Arquitectura-G’s Casa Luz in Cilleros, Extremadura, which has reclaimed an abandoned house for a person from outside the village, revitalising local life and the local economy.
This type of intervention not only preserves the historical value, but also recovers traditional and local materials and construction techniques, favouring a more harmonious connection with the natural surroundings and helping to preserve the landscape, integrating innovation with tradition and promoting sustainable development. In the case of Casa 1413 in Ullastret by Harquitectes, the material and constructional logics of the original wall-fence are followed, adapting them to current requirements, re-contextualising the plot, offering a coherent and honest response to its surroundings; and in the case of the Recovery of Merola’s Tower in Puig-reig, by Carles Enrich Studio, it goes beyond the mere fact of consolidating the remains of a heritage element to reinforce it with a structure that transforms it into a vantage point.
on celebrating major events
The Badalona Municipal Sports Stadium by Esteve Bonell and Francesc Rius, the venue for the basketball competition, transformed the city of Badalona in the context of the 1992 Olympic Games. It has become a centre of transformation for the city, activating the public space around it, opening up the city towards the sea and integrating it into the metropolitan culture of Barcelona.
The Forum 2004 Esplanade and Fotovoltaic Plant, by Martínez Lapeña – Torres, represented the completion of Barcelona’s Diagonal Avenue, transforming what was one of the city’s residual areas into an engine for the generation of renewable energies and a great platform for hosting multitudinous events and the creation of a new sea and river front for the city.
The Catalan team of architects b720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos, together with David Chipperfield Architects, contributed to the transformation of part of the seafront of the city of Valencia with the construction of the Veles e Vents building for the America’s Cup sailing competition in 2007.
The architecture of major events transforms cities in a profound and lasting way. These events generate the need to build significant infrastructures, from sports facilities, mobility infrastructures and entire new neighbourhoods or the transformation of existing ones, revitalising degraded areas and favouring experimentation and development, especially economic and tourist development. They also boost the international projection of cities and countries, changing their image and fostering a new urban identity. These changes can have positive effects in the long term, but they also bring with them challenges such as social integration, the management of post-event spaces and the costs associated with their construction and maintenance. In Barcelona and its metropolitan area, the 1992 Olympic Games and the 2004 Forum of Cultures, as well as the 2007 America’s Cup in Valencia, stand out.
on providing the city with facilities
The construction of public facilities such as libraries has become a driving force for the creation of new centralities in contemporary cities. These spaces not only provide essential services such as access to knowledge and culture, but also contribute to revitalising less developed urban areas, turning them into new centres of social and economic activity. The location of a library in a neighbourhood can attract both residents and visitors, activating local commerce and fostering social cohesion by providing space for community, educational and cultural activities.
This is the case of the Gabriel García Márquez Library by SUMA Arquitectura in Sant Martí de Provençals and the Joan Oliver Library, Senior Citizens Centre and Interior Courtyard in the Sant Antoni neighbourhood of Barcelona, by RCR Arquitectes, which have become new poles of urban attraction, redefining areas and offering a key infrastructure for community life. In this sense, libraries are not only places to study or read, but function as multifunctional spaces that strengthen the identity of the neighbourhood and activate public life, generating new centralities in the urban context.
The case of the Philharmonic in the Polish city of Szczecin, by the Barcelona studio Barozzi Veiga, is another example of the creation of new centralities and the revitalisation of depressed parts of the city through public facilities. In this case it is a public facility linked to music as an element of social cohesion in Polish culture.
In Barcelona, it is also worth mentioning the work carried out in other municipal facilities with the aim of rehabilitating and updating them, as in the case of the markets, with special emphasis on the intervention by Miralles Tagliabue EMBT in the Santa Caterina Market in 2005, which involved the transformation of the eastern sector of Ciutat Vella. Also, in sports facilities such as the Turó de la Peira’s Sports Centre and Layout of the Interior Urban Block by Arquitectura Anna Noguera in Nou Barris neighbourhood.
on building (in the) landscape
The Tossols-Basil Track and Field Stadium by RCR Arquitectes is located in a natural setting next to the Fluvià river and the banks of the city of Olot. Built in the early 2000s, it is a respectful intervention that blends in with the natural surroundings, forming part of the richness and beauty of the existing landscape.
In 1999, Carlos Ferrater, Josep Lluís Canosa and Bet Figueras completed the construction of the Botanical Garden of Barcelona, located on Montjuïc mountain, on a former landfill site. The project deploys a strategy of triangulation that facets and fractalises the landscape that it builds, responding to the complex technical requirements of irrigation, drainage and circulation, among others.
Twenty years after these approaches to building in the landscape or building landscape, four young architects who won the EUmies Awards Young Talent are carrying out a project to renaturalise the ecosystem of the Llobregat River as it passes through the town of Sallent. This is Oasis, by Álvaro Alcázar del Águila, Eduard Llargués, Roser Garcia and Sergio Sangalli, from the Vallès School of Architecture – Polytechnic University of Catalonia, a project carried out within the academic framework of the school of architecture that dialogues with the landscape and the natural environment, studying its dynamics, provides a response based on resilience and the application of strategies that are not imposed and are proper to the environment understood as metabolism. This is a real transformation of the landscape with natural logics that enables the fluvial resilience of the territory over time.
