Winners of EUmies Award 2026 Announced

The two winners were announced today at an event hosted by representatives of the European Commission and the Fundació Mies van der Roheat the Silo, a landmark industrial building from designed by Alvar Aalto in Oulu, the Finnish city that is serving as the European Capital of Culture 2026. The announcement is a culmination of a process that began with a list of 410 works in 40 European countries nominated for what is considered the highest honor for architecture in the European Union.

The 2026 jury was chaired by Chilean architect Smiljan Radić Clarke, who is also this year's Pritzker Architecture Prize laureate, and included Carl Bäckstrand of White Arkitekter, Chris Briffa, Zaiga Gaile, Tina Gregorič, Nikolaus Hirsch, and Rosa Rull Bertrán. In awarding the renovation of a mid-20th-century building and temporary spaces within an abandoned industrial building, the jury “highlights an architecture that works with the existing,” per today's announcement, “embracing constraints as opportunities, and advancing processes of transformation, repair, and appropriation as central to contemporary practice.”

The two winners are in line with recent trends in the EUmies Awards, which have seen two of the four most recent award cycles going to renovations and transformations. Furthermore, four of the seven finalists announced in February are renovations rather than new construction. Comments from the jury echo the importance of adaptive reuse today: “Taken together, the finalist and winning works form a coherent body of projects that reflects the key directions shaping contemporary architecture today: an architecture that accepts uncertainty, works with existing realities, and transforms constraints into opportunities. Together, they offer a critical and optimistic perspective on how architecture can address environmental, social, and economic challenges, not through excess, but through precision, resourcefulness, and a renewed understanding of the value of what already exists.”

Details on the two winners of the EUmies Awards 2026 are below.

Charleroi Palais des Expositions is the renovation of a 1950s convention center in Charleroi, in Belgium's Wallonia region, into a congress center with covered outdoor space and multi-story car park. The project was designed by AgwA from Brussels and architecten jan de vylder inge vinck from Ghent. Photographs of the Palais des Expositions reveal a structure that is primarily exposed to the elements—a situation arose from a low budget that the architects to create what is effectively a “zero energy” structure. The existing convention center basically comprised two structures (north and south), and in the Palais des Expositionts the southern volume was turned into parking, the northern volume is where the minimal enclosed space is found, and in between is a three-level garden.

As is customary with the EUmies Award, the jury visited each of the finalists to determine the winners, through which they found a shared direction among the projects: “an architecture that works with existing conditions, embraces constraints, and redefines the possibilities of transformation, reuse, and repair in the contemporary European context.” In addition to reusing the structure, opening it up to welcome natural ventilation, and making precise interventions throughout, the team turned demolished elements into urban furniture, protected old concrete with anti-carbonization paint, and repainted surfaces to recall their previous functions to help visitors reconnect with the building's past.

The jury wrote that the Charleroi Palais des Expositions is being named the Architecture Winner “for its intelligent and precise transformation of an immense existing exhibition building, demonstrating how architecture can work with what is already there to unlock new spatial, social, and material possibilities. Rather than replacing, it reactivates the place embracing constraints, engaging with the building’s inherent qualities, and developing a bold yet resourceful approach that turns scarcity into opportunity and repair into a powerful design strategy.”

As its name indicates, Temporary Spaces for Slovenian National Theatre Drama is the adaptive reuse of a former industrial hall into temporary facilities for the Slovenian National Theatre Drama Ljubljana while its historic building in the city center undergoes renovation. The temporary facilities include numerous functions inserted into the 1960s-era industrial buildings: lobbies, the Big Stage with 361 seats, the Small Drama hall with 100 seats, a public bar with ticket office, two rehearsal halls, service and technical rooms, and a courtyard terrace. Previously, the project designed by Vidic Grohar Arhitekti, the Ljubljana firm of Anja Vidic and Jure Grohar, won the International 2024 Piranesi Award.

The jury wrote that the Temporary Spaces for Slovenian National Theatre Drama is being named the Emerging Architecture Winner “for its ability to transform a temporary condition into a powerful and lasting architectural statement, activating an abandoned industrial complex into a vibrant cultural infrastructure. Through a series of precise, low-budget interventions, the project redefines the relationship between permanence and reuse, creating a sequence of flexible and inclusive spaces that expand the city’s cultural life while embracing material resourcefulness and adaptability.”