Architectural Heritage Intervention has announced the seventh edition of the European Award AHI, with registrations open from 18 December 2024 to 14 March 2025. The Award, a European benchmark in the field of heritage intervention, stimulates debate on how interventions should be carried out and what should be considered architectural heritage in European cities, especially in light of the challenges posed by the climate emergency and decarbonisation.
Organised jointly with the Architects’ Association of Catalonia, it is supported by the Government of Catalonia, Barcelona Provincial Council, the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona and Barcelona City Council.
The heritage dissemination platform Architectural Heritage Intervention and the Architects’ Association of Catalonia have opened the registration for the seventh edition of the European Award AHI. This biennial event, which since 2013 has recognised the best interventions in European heritage across four categories (Built Heritage, Exterior Spaces, Urban Planning and Disclosure), will distinguish works completed between 1 January 2018 and 31 December 2024 within the European geographical area. The call is open to all professionals, associations and/or institutions involved in architectural heritage and will remain open until 14 March 2025 at 24:00 (GMT+1).
The Award has become a benchmark for architectural heritage intervention, as evidenced by the large number of works submitted in each edition, which help shed light on the direction in which Europe is heading in this field. As such, and in the context of the current climate emergency and decarbonisation, the event acts as an observatory of best practices, focusing, among other things, on the ability of projects to incorporate energy efficiency strategies
read moreThe Award’s international jury, to be announced next January, comprises experts with a distinguished track record. This jury will select up to 15 projects in the Built Heritage category, 10 in the Exterior Spaces category, and six projects in both the Urban Planning and Disclosure categories. All selected projects will be made public in May 2025. The winner and finalists in each category will be chosen from this selection. After the final deliberation of the jury, which will take place in Barcelona, the winning projects will be announced in June 2025, in a public ceremony to be held for the first time in the Ceremonial Hall of the Barcelona Industrial School, an iconic work of Catalan modernism owned by Barcelona Provincial Council.
As in previous editions, two special mentions will be awarded among the submitted works: the Restoration Special Mention is awarded to the project that stands out from a technical and methodological perspective for its quality, precision and respect; meanwhile, the New European Bauhaus Special Mention is awarded to the work that prioritizes values such as sustainability, aesthetics and inclusion.
The Award stems from the conviction that, in the current context, architectural heritage is, in addition to being a fundamental instrument of knowledge, a key socioeconomic resource for the sustainable development of regions.
Now in its seventh edition, the main goal of the Award is to contribute to the revaluation of heritage as a pathway for the future of 21st-century architecture, with clear social, environmental and economic benefits. Over the course of its existence, the Award has become a space for the dissemination and promotion of good European architectural practices. The six editions held to date have seen the participation of over 1,200 projects representing
studios, architects and institutions from 32 different European countries.
This project, founded and directed by the architects Ramon Calonge, Oriol Cusidó, Marc Manzano and Jordi Portal, is a platform that contributes to the revaluation of Architectural Heritage, encompassing four independent yet interconnected initiatives: a Europe-wide Award organised jointly with the Architects’ Association of Catalonia (COAC), an international Biennial, a Digital Archive and a Debate Forum. AHI advocates for an active and continuous dissemination policy, understanding and promoting architectural heritage from an inclusive and contemporary perspective
