Dezeen Magazine

Szczecin Philharmonic Hall wins Mies van der Rohe Award 2015

The Szczecin Philharmonic Hall in Poland by Spanish studio Barozzi Veiga has won the European Union's architecture prize, the Mies van der Rohe Award 2015.

The concert hall, which features a zigzagging roof profile and a translucent ribbed-glass facade, saw off competition from O'Donnell + Tuomey's red brick student centre for the London School of Economics and BIG's Danish Maritime Museum in Helsingør to win the €60,000 (£45,000) prize.

Other projects in the running were the Ravensburg Art Museum in Germany by Lederer Ragnarsdóttir Oei and the Antinori Winery by Archea Associati, which is buried beneath an Italian vineyard.

Szczecin-concert-hall-photographed-by-Hufton-Crow-_dezeen_SQ011

The winner was selected by a jury including Italian architect Cino Zucchi, Bolles+Wilson co-founder Peter L Wilson and the RIBA's Tony Chapman, who visited all five shortlisted buildings.

They praised the Szczecin Philharmonic Hall for taking on "a new symbolic role" in its replacement of an auditorium that was destroyed during the second world war, and recognised the building's potential to offer "new chances for cultural and leisure events".

"This winning project finds a convincing formal and spatial strategy for a city which strives for a better future in a fast-changing economy and social patterns, delivering a dignity to urban life and the same time enhancing the city's specific historical identity with a contemporary monument," they said.

Szczecin Philharmonic Hall

"The series of pitched gables which crowns the rectangular complex of the new building dialogues well with the silhouette of the nearby castle," they added.

Named after German-American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the biennial award is the most prestigious accolade in European architecture and is awarded to a building completed in the last two years by a European architect.

The announcement was made this morning in a ceremony held at Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona Pavilion in Spain.

Szczecin concert hall photographed by Hufton + Crow

The 2013 winner was the Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Centre in Reykjavik, while in 2011 it went to David Chipperfield's Neues Museum renovation in Berlin. Other past winners include Snøhetta's Oslo Opera House and Peter Zumthor's Kunsthaus Bregenz.

Photography is by Hufton + Crow.