A call for entries is now being made for the Tenth European Prize for Urban Public Space, 2018. Since 2000 this biennial honorific award has aimed to recognise, promote and publicise examples of good practice in dealing with the many challenges faced by public spaces in European cities. The Prize aims to support the open, compact city of universal access, guaranteeing harmonious coexistence among its citizens, a mixture of uses, and sustainable mobility, preserving the historical memory of places and favouring participation of citizens in projects designing shared spaces.
True to its cause throughout ten awards, the Prize considers all kinds of interventions aimed at creating, recovering or improving the democratic quality of the urban spaces we share and is jointly presented to the authors of the projects and the cities or other promoters of spaces assuring improvement in the lives of citizens.
The works presented for this year’s award must have been carried out in European cities in 2016 and 2017. Registration is free of charge and must be completed in the period from 15 January to 21 February 2018 by means of the Prize website, which also provides information regarding the Schedule and Rules as well as the documents required and details of the conditions for participation.
The Prize Jury will consist of ten members with Olga Tarrasó as president, representing the Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB). As in other years, the Jury will include directors of the other six organising institutions who, this award, are Peter Chacola Schmal (Deutsches Architekturmuseum, DAM, Frankfurt—member since 2010); Matevž Čelik (Muzej za Arhitekturo in Oblikovanje, MAO, Ljubljana—member since 2014); Angelika Fitz (Architekturzentrum Wien, AzW, Vienna—member for the first time); Juulia Kauste (Arkkitehtuurimuseo, Helsinki—member since 2012; Francis Rambert (La Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine, Paris—member since 2006); and Ellis Woodman (The Architecture Foundation, AF, London—member since 2014). For the second time, the Jury for the 2018 award will include two members who are not representatives of the organising institutions, namely the architecture critic and historian Hans Ibelings (Amsterdam) and the Polish architect Ewa P. Porębska (Warsaw). The Jury members will be assisted by a non-voting secretary, the architect David Bravo who, nominated by the CCCB, will record the minutes of the sessions in the process of selecting the award-winners. The Jury will meet in Barcelona on 18 and 19 April to consider all the works presented for the Prize and to decide the winners of this latest award. Their decision will not be made public until the prize-giving ceremony which is to be held next June at the CCCB.
The Prize has the support of a Committee of Experts consisting of forty members from thirty European countries. Their task is to recommend to the Prize organisers outstanding works carried out in their respective territories so that their designers and sponsors may then be invited to present them for the Prize. By this means, the Prize guarantees territorial representativeness and ensures that outstanding works are not excluded from participating.
