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Het Steen by noAarchitecten wins Grand Prix Erich Mendelsohn Award 2026

Het Steen wins Grand Prix Erich Mendelsohn Award 2026

With the restoration and extension of Het Steen in Antwerp, noAarchitecten wins the Grand Prix of the 2026 Erich Mendelsohn Award, the highest honour of the international prize for brick architecture. The triennial prize was presented in Berlin on 4 September. From more than 500 entries from 41 countries, the international jury selected Het Steen as the overall winner. This is the first time this top prize has gone to Belgium.

Redevelopment leads to architectural quality

For noAarchitecten, the Grand Prix is a special recognition of years of design research, meticulous craftsmanship and intensive collaboration. "This accolade strikes at the heart of our practice: building on what already exists and creating space for community life. We share this pride with our team, the client, the City of Antwerp, the artist
Pieter Vermeersch, and all the partners and tradespeople who helped bring the project to fruition."

The jury praised the way in which the historic building and the contemporary extension together form a seamless whole. They highlighted the careful use of colour, which reveals the building’s different historical layers. In this way, the act of building on what already exists becomes an architectural quality in its own right.


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noAarchitecten, Het Steen, Antwerpen © Kim Zwarts

Layered history

Het Steen has been shaped by centuries of construction, demolition and alteration. It was originally part of Antwerp’s first city ramparts. It was not until the major nineteenth-century redevelopment of the Scheldt quays that it acquired its freestanding character. The nineteenth-century vision of an ancient castle gave the historical remains a coherent narrative and a new significance in this location. This layered history forms the starting point for the design.

A 1950s extension has been replaced by a new structure that extends the character of the castle on the Scheldt on all sides. Walls, bay windows, niches and towers form a shared design language, realised using contemporary materials and construction techniques. The extension explores how a building can change whilst remaining recognisable.


35 noaarchitecten Het Steen foto Kim Zwarts

The brick façades reflect the existing shades of the historic natural stone masonry, creating a gradual transition from dark to light. The colour gradient in the brickwork was developed in collaboration with Pieter Vermeersch, involving a careful selection of materials and extensive full-scale trials. In this way, the new brickwork harmonises with the colours and patina that have developed on the old city wall over the centuries.

Inside, generous staircases, deep window openings and seating areas bring the building down to the scale of everyday use. Het Steen houses the Antwerp visitor centre, exhibition spaces and reception facilities for cruise passengers. The publicly accessible roof terrace offers views over the city and the Scheldt, allowing visitors to experience the monument in a new way.

International recognition

The Grand Prix follows on from the 2022 Flanders Heritage Award, the shortlist for the 2024 EU Mies Awards and the 2025 AHI European Award in the Built Heritage category. These successive accolades underscore the international recognition of Het Steen as a contemporary intervention in a historic setting.

Published on 8 September 2026

Practical

project

Architecture: noAarchitecten

Client: Stad Antwerpen

Art Integration: Pieter Vermeersch

Location: Antwerp, Belgium

Project period: 2016–2022

Surface: ca 5.000 m²

Photography: Kim Zwarts

buildings database

The ‘Het Steen’ project was published in Flanders Architectural Review N°15. Alliances with the Real. Discover more photographs and design plans via this link.