Call for entries: European Prize for Urban Public Space 2022

The Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB) announces the call for entries for the eleventh European Prize for Urban Public Space, a leading observatory of European cities that recognises the best works to create, recover, transform, and improve public spaces in Europe. Registration of works carried out from 2018 to the end of 2021 in the 46 member states of the Council of Europe is free of charge and open from April 20 to May 17, 2022.

The European Prize for Urban Public Space is an initiative of the CCCB which, since 2000 and on a biennial basis, recognises the best interventions of creation and transformation in public spaces of European cities.

In today’s situation, where the climate emergency and crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic show that cities around the world are facing new climatic, technological, and social challenges, public space is more important than ever.

The Prize, the only one in Europe devoted to public space, is awarded to both the authors of the project and its developers. It aims to stimulate reflection on the centrality of these issues of public concern and become an observatory of good practices that offers possible solutions for a future in which cities will have a primary role in defining society’s evolution.

Throughout the 22-year history and 10 editions of the Prize, the 2,206 works that have been submitted have yielded 19 winners (some ex aequeo) and 35 Special Mentions. A selection of the best 357 works from all awards is published on the Prize’s website.

The Advisory Committee of the 2022 Prize consists of ten European institutions: The Architecture Foundation - AF (London), Arc en Rêve (Bordeaux), ArkDes (Stockholm), Architekturzentrum Wien (Vienna), Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine (Paris), CIVA (Brussels), Deutsches Architekturmuseum - DAM (Frankfurt), Eesti Arhitektuurimuuseum (Tallinn), Kortárs Építészeti Központ - KÉK (Budapest), and Muzej za Arhitekturo in Oblikovanje – MAO (Ljubljana).

Members of the jury for this year’s award are:

President
Teresa Galí-Izard, agricultural engineer and landscape designer (Barcelona/Zurich)

Members
Hans Ibelings, architecture critic and historian (Amsterdam/Montreal)
Eleni Myrivili, anthropologist and expert in heat resilience (Athens),
Andreas Ruby, architecture historian, curator, and publisher (Basel)
Paloma Strelitz, strategic and creative director with a focus on cities, culture, and technology (London)
Špela Videčnik, architect (Ljubljana)

Secretary
Lluís Ortega, architect (Barcelona)

The jury will evaluate the proposals that best respond to the emerging challenges of public space and will consider the effects of the urban transformation in its specific context and its impact on collective life, from the cultural, social, and environmental perspectives.

The Prize is an honorary award and gives maximum dissemination to the selected works through its network of European collaborators and partners.

The conditions of entry for the Prize may be found at publicspace.org. For more information contact publicspace [​at​] cccb.org.