European Prize for Urban Public Space 2026

Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB) tarafından düzenlenen The European Prize for Urban Public Space kapsamında, yaratıcı ve fark yaratan kamusal alan projeleri ödüllendiriliyor. Ödül için 26 Şubat 2026 tarihine kadar başvuru yapılabiliyor.

Background

The European Prize for Urban Public Space is an initiative of the CCCB (Center for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona ) which, since 2000 and on a biennial basis, recognizes the best interventions in the creation and transformation of public spaces in European cities.

The Prize has an honorary nature, is awarded jointly to the authors and promoters of works carried out in the 46 countries that make up the Council of Europe and gives the maximum dissemination to the selected works through the network of European collaborators and partners.

The Prize offers a unique perspective on European cities and aims to become a benchmark for discussing the challenges of urban public space, in collaboration with experts and architectural, academic and cultural institutions from all over the European territory.

Throughout its 26-year history and 12 editions, 2,800 works have been submitted to the Prize. A selection of the best 413 works from all editions is published on the project’s website.

Public and Urban Space

The European Prize for Urban Public Space centres on European cities, which despite their diversity, share some common historical elements, such as a human scale, a compact design and a mixed-use character. In this idea of the European city, public space plays a key role in collective encounters, imbued with political, economic and social values that are inseparable from a physical design that admits them and makes them possible. In this way, the Prize, as an observatory for the quality of public spaces, also becomes a project that generates attention and reflection on the quality of life and the democratic quality in European cities.

Cities in Europe are facing challenges and transformations that affect urban areas around the world. From this perspective, the Prize presents a specific look that draws on our most immediate reality to a debate on the future of cities that is global, and that, in a progressively urbanized world, is gaining more and more importance every day. Reflecting on European cities means looking at concrete solutions that are being implemented today in Europe to respond to the global challenges of the urban future.

Today, the climate emergency has transformed global agendas; it has added more challenges to the current social problems facing our cities, and it has become a central vector for urban thinking. Issues such as mobility, inequalities, migration, and climate emergencies present challenges for which there are still no clear answers and which have a direct impact on urban design and public space, due to their clearly social or public function. Additionally, the impact of technological transformations also intervenes directly in our urban realities.

The Prize aims to reflect the centrality of these issues and to become an observatory for best practices that will allow us to imagine possible solutions for a future in which cities will play a key role in defining how society evolves. It is a unique prize in Europe, as it promotes spaces that is both public (open and universally accessible) and urban.

Object of the Prize: 13th Edition (2026)

The CCCB is launching a new call for the European Prize for Urban Public Space with the aim of acknowledging interventions in public space carried out between 2021 and 2025.

The competition is open, free, and will take place in two rounds.

In the first round, the jury will select 25 works to be published on the archive of the Prize website and in the 2026 Prize catalogue. From the 25 works selected in the first round, 5 finalists will move on to the second round. In the second round of the competition, the jury will evaluate the finalist works. Finally, the jury will designate a winner..

Advisory Committee

The Award has an institutional network around Europe that aims to consolidate the project throughout the territory and to guarantee recognition of the most outstanding interventions in public space.

The institutions that form part of the Advisory Committee for this year’s edition are:

Arc en rêve (Bordeaux), ArkDes (Stockholm), Architekturzentrum Wien (Vienna), Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine (Paris), CIVA (Brussels), Deutsches Architekturmuseum (Frankfurt), Eesti Arhitektuurimuuseum (Tallinn), Kortárs Építészeti Központ (Budapest), Muzej za Arhitekturo in Oblikovanje(Ljubljana) and The Architecture Foundation (London).

Jury

The Jury for this year’s Prize consists of eminent professionals from all over Europe, namely:

President: Eva Prats, architect (Barcelona)

Members:

• Angelika Fitz, architect, director of the Architekturzentrum Wien
• Monika Konrad, architect and urban planner
• Inês Lobo, architect and curator
• Bas Smets, architect and landscape designer
• Philip Ursprung, architectural historian

Secretary: Lluís Ortega, architect (Barcelona)

The Jury will consider only those interventions that comply with the terms and conditions established herein and can also declare the award null and void. The secretary will assist the Jury and will take the minutes for the sessions during the voting proceedings.

Registration

The registration of works for both categories opens on 10 December 2026 at 12 noon (GMT +1) and closes on 26 February 2026 at 12 noon (GMT +1). Registration is to be completed exclusively online by means of an electronic form that is available on the Prize website.

Once the registration form for a work has been completed and the registration code obtained, participants can modify or add to the form as often as they wish until the registration period ends. Participants who present more than one project must complete the online registration process for each one of the works.

Detailed instructions for registration will be found in the guide that will be available at the Prize website on 11 November 2025.

Submitting an entry for the Prize implies the participant’s acceptance of all the terms and conditions.

Calendar

10 December 2025: Start of submissions at 12:00 (GMT+1)

26 February 2026: Closing of submissions at 12:00 (GMT+1)

2-3 July 2026: Jury meeting to select the shortlisted and finalist works

9 July 2026: Announcement of the 25 shortlisted works

9 September 2026: Announcement of the 5 finalist works

15-18 October 2026: Presentation of the 5 finalist works at a public event at the CCCB, final jury deliberation and award ceremony

Informations & Consultations

For further information, please contact [email protected] of the Center of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB), at Montalegre, 5 (08001) Barcelona.