5 stellar European buildings are chosen as finalists for the 2017 Mies Award

The projects are located in France, Netherlands, and Poland

By Lauren Ro@blauring Feb 15, 2017, 3:54pm EST

A building with an oversized brick gabled roof structure in front of an old cathedral. — Kannikegården is located in Ribe, Denmark’s best preserved medieval city.

Five finalists have been selected from the 40 shortlisted projects of the Mies van der Rohe Award. They were chosen for their ability to “respond to the concerns of today’s European society,” according to the jury.

As Jury Chairman Stephen Bates said, “Our instincts could be summed up by the words of Peter Smithson: ‘Things need to be ordinary and heroic at the same time.’ We were looking for an ordinariness whose understated lyricism is full of potential.”

The finalists include residences and museums in the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Poland, France, and Denmark. Jury members will travel to each of the sites to evaluate the buildings and how the public uses and responds to them. After the winner is announced in Brussels on May 16, the projects will open to the public from May 20 to 28 to give the public a chance to learn more about the buildings and meet the architects.

The biennial prize was established in 1987 by the European Union, the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the Fundació Mies van der Rohe in Barcelona, and is awarded to projects that have been completed in the past two years.