Renovation and Reuse Projects in Belgium and Slovenia Honored with 2026 EUmies Awards
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The renovation of Charleroi Palais des Expositions, a 1950s Belgian convention center, is the winner of the 2026 EUmies Architecture Award.
Following the February announcement of seven finalist projects selected from a shortlist of 40 and a longlist of more than 400 nominated works, Fundació Mies van der Rohe and the European Commission have revealed the two winners of the 2026 edition of the EU Prize for Contemporary Architecture / Mies van der Rohe Awards—or, as they are better known, the EUmies Awards. The announcement was made at the Alvar Aalto–designed Silo (1931) in Oulu, Finland, which is the European Capital of Culture 2026.
Temporary Spaces for Slovenian National Theatre Drama by Vidic Grohar Arhitekti. Photo © Maxime Delvaux
As with past cycles of the prestigious biennial EUmies awards program, the pair of winning projects were recognized in two categories: The Architecture Award and the Emerging Architecture Award. In the first category, the awardee is the renovation of the Charleroi Palais des Expositions, a 1950s convention center in Wallonia, Belgium. The project—recognized 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”—is the work of two Belgian firms: the Brussels-based AgwA and Ghent’s Architecten Jan de Vylder Inge Vinck.
Winning the Emerging Architecture Award is Temporary Spaces for Slovenian National Theatre Drama by Ljubljana-based Vidic Grohar Arhitekti. An ambitious adaptive reuse effort, it was awarded for its “ability to transform a temporary condition into a powerful and lasting architectural statement, activating an abandoned industrial complex into vibrant cultural infrastructure.”
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Charleroi Palais des Expositions by AgwA and Architecten Jan de Vylder Inge Vinc. Photos © FIlip Dujardin
With the selection of these two projects, the EUmies jury chose to honor “architecture that works with the existing, embracing constraints as opportunities, and advancing processes of transformation, repair, and appropriation as central to contemporary practice.” Outside of Belgium and Slovenia, other finalist projects are in Croatia and Spain, with multiple in France. The 2024 EUmies Architecture Award and Emerging Architecture Award recipients were in Brunswick, Germany, and Barcelona, respectively.
Temporary Spaces for Slovenian National Theatre Drama by Vidic Grohar Arhitekti. Photos © Maxime Delvaux
“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,” reads a statement provided by the EUmies Awards. “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.”
The EUmies Awards Days, including a ceremony, will take place on May 11–12 in Barcelona at the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion and at Palau Victòria Eugènia, where a 2026 wards exhibition (on view through July 6) will feature models, texts, videos, and drawings of the 40 shortlisted works and a summary of all of this cycle’s nominees. The exhibition will then travel to different European cities.
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