European Prize for Urban Public Space - architeria.eu

ARCHITECTURE AWARD
Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona
Barcelona, Spain

THE EUROPEAN PRIZE FOR URBAN PUBLIC SPACE
13 June 2008

The European Prize for Urban Public Space is an initiative of the Centre de Cultura Contemporània
de Barcelona (CCCB) which, with its exhibition “The Reconquest of Europe” (1999), set out to chart the
process of rehabilitation of public spaces taking place in many European cities.

The Prize was created with a view to acknowledging and promoting the public aspect of urban spaces and
their capacity for social cohesion. Accepting the ambiguities inherent in the notion of public space, this is the
only European prize to acknowledge and promote a space that is both public (open in all senses) and urban
(the epitome of the European city, dense and compact, as opposed to the rural world). The prize therefore
differs from other initiatives centred on the figure of the architect and his or her constructions and from prizes
devoted to the landscape, instead highlighting the relational, civic nature of typically urban space.

Various European institutions have joined the project, now co-organized by the Architecture Foundation
(London), the Architektur Zentrum Wien (Vienna), the Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine (Paris),
the Nederlands Architectuurinstituut (Rotterdam) and the Museum of Finnish Architecture (Helsinki).
The four prizes announced to date have consolidated the event institutionally, serving to extend
its geographical scope. In 2006, 207 projects were submitted to the Prize from 31 European countries
(compared with 169 from 20 countries in 2004), constituting a window on the transformation of public
spaces in Europe and a finger on the pulse of the principal concerns of European cities.

Various aspects set this Prize apart. The first is that it is awarded both to the architect and to the public
administration (city council or political representative) behind the political decision to carry out the intervention
and, in many cases, financing it. The fact that the Prize is an honorary award is its second singularity.
The third is that the Prize is not aimed only or primarily at large-scale urban development projects, but also
at urban suturing operations, large and small, that seek above all to improve residents’ living conditions.
It places the emphasis on architecture with a social purpose over and above the aesthetic or the spectacular,
offering the same opportunities to emerging or unknown architects and the big names of world architecture
alike. The fourth singularity of the Prize is that it is European in scope. While preserving local particularities,
the Prize aims to pay tribute to the shared features of urban planning projects throughout European
geography, seeking to promote and publicize a specific European identity in the field of architecture.

Thanks to the financial backing of the European Commission, most of the projects submitted to the Prize
over the years are available for consultation in the European Archive of Urban Public Space
(http://urban.cccb.org/archive), which now contains 250 projects in over 100 European cities and is
complemented by the theoretical and multidisciplinary reflection of the CCCB’s Urban Library
(http://urban.cccb.org/library). The Prize is further set within the CCCB’s general framework of ongoing
multidisciplinary reflection on the theme of the city and public space.

-----------
CREDITS:
Text and logo: Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona