The European Commission and the Fundació Mies van der Rohe have announced the winners of the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award 2017. DeFlat Kleiburg in Amsterdam is the 2017 Winner of Prize.
The architects are NL architects and XVW architectuur and the client Kondor WesselsVastgoed. DeFlat is an innovative renovation of one of the biggest apartment buildings in The Netherlands called Kleiburg, a bend slab with 500 apartmentsin Amsterdam’s Bijlmermeer neighbourhood. Consortium DeFlat rescued the building from the wrecking ball by turning it into a "Klusflat", meaning that the inhabitants renovate their apartments by themselves.
NL architects were awarded the Emerging Architect Prize of the EU Mies Award in 2005 for their work BasketBar in Utrecht. The 2017 Emerging Architect Prize has been awarded to the Brussels studios MSA/V+ for the work NAVEZ - 5 social units at the northern entrance of Brussels, a housing project that fulfills the double ambition of the local authorities: to represent the urban revalidation scheme with a landmark at the entrance of the city and to provide exemplary apartments for large families. The client is the City of Schaerbeek. The two awarded projects have been chosen from a list of 355 works from 36 European countries.
Five finalists were selected and visited by the Jury: Rivesaltes Memorial Museum, Katyn Museum in Warsaw, DeFlat Kleiburg in Amsterdam, Kannikegården in Ribe and Ely Court in London, accompanied by the authors of the works, who also gave lectures open to the public.
In the run-up to the awards ceremony (between May 20 and 25), the finalist and winning buildings of the current edition will organize activities to open their doors to the public and the press. Michel Magnier, Director for Culture and Creativity, DG Education, Youth, Sport and Culture of the European Commission and Daniel Mòdol, President of the Fundació Mies van der Rohe, will grant the winners the prizes of 60,000€ (primary prize) and 20,000€ (emerging architect prize) on May 26 at the Mies van der Rohe Pavilionin Barcelona.
