The European Commission and the Mies van der Rohe Foundation have announced its new calendar for the next European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award, and the prestigious Mies van der Rohe Award has been postponed until 2022 due to international concern about the spread of the coronavirus.

As a result of the situation and its restrictions, the organizers have been forced to make this joint decision, the same that has happened with other international events in which the Prize is also involved and that have also been postponed. 

"The safety of all the personnel involved in the award is a priority at this time"

Like many other events, the Mies van der Rohe Award is one of the events affected the global coronavirus pandemic. The organizers of the Award said "the safety of all the personnel involved in the award is a priority at this time."

"The rigour of the judging process involves a group of Jury members personally coming from different countries to personally visit the finalist works, spread on the European territories, and this does not seem possible to happen during the first months of 2021," said Anna Ramos, director of Fundació Mies van der Rohe.

The 2022 edition of the Mies van der Rohe Award will be divided into two phases

The process of the Prize 2022 will be organized in an exceptional way in order to include all the works and to ensure the rigor and excellence of the evaluation of all the projects. According to this decision this edition will be divided into two phases: 

1st phase: First list of nominated projects (includes those works finished between October 2018 and October 2020) The group of independent experts and the associations of architects have already sent the proposals of candidate works to participate in what was initially to be the EU Mies Award 2021. All these projects are currently under review to confirm that all the requirements are correct and the official announcement of this list will be published in January 2021.

2nd phase: Second list of nominated projects (includes those works finished bewteen November 2020 to April 2021)

The nominators will be asked to add other works finished between November 2020 and April 2021 to complete the second phase. As a result, the EU Mies Award 2022 will count with works finished between October 2018 and April 2021. The works nominated in the second phase and that will complete the final list of works to be considered by the Jury, will be anounced in September 2021.

"The winners will be awarded during the EU Mies Award Day in May, which will consist of the Awards ceremony, an exhibition, conferences & talks and the presentation of the catalogue," stated in an a press release. 

"During that week, visits to the shortlisted Works will also take place. The travelling exhibition will start its travel to Vienna in June." 

New Calendar: 

January 2021: announcement of the EU Mies Award 2022 works nominated in the first phase 

September 2021: announcement of the EU Mies Award 2022 works nominated in the second phase 

January 2022: announcement of the Shortlisted Works 

February 2022: announcement of the 5 Finalist Works 

April 2022: announcement of the Winners 

May 2022: EU Mies Award Day with the Awards ceremony, exhibition and visits to shortlisted works; presentation of publication and start of the travelling exhibition (first to Vienna).

Top image courtesy of Mies van der Rohe Foundation

> via Mies van der Rohe Foundation