YTAA 2020 Is Underway

The YTAA is part of the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award and alternates each calendar year with that prestigious award. While the Mies Prize, for short, recognizes the best building completed in the previous two years in Europe, the YTAA awards the best thesis projects by recent graduates — emerging architects and potential future Mies Prize winners — from European schools of architecture. Additionally, starting with the invitation of schools from China and South Korea in 2018, the third iteration of the prize includes three guest countries: Brazil, Chile, and Mexico.

Eligible projects must be from the last two years, from between January 1, 2018, and December 31, 2019. Students must have produced the projects and graduated from schools in countries participating in the Creative Europe program, or from schools in this cycle's guest countries. The participating schools will nominate the projects that will be in the running for YTAA, which will consist of a shortlist, twelve finalists, and four winners that will be announced in the context of the 2020 Venice Architecture Biennale. The full list of rules and a timeline of the process are available on the YTAA website.

The jury for YTAA 2020 has already been determined and will be comprised of:

• Martine de Maeseneer (Chair), Vice Dean for International Affairs Faculty of Architecture, KU Leuven, Brussels;
• Oleg Drozdov, drozdov&partners and co-founder of the Kharkiv School of Architecture, Kharkiv;
• Juliet Leach, Head of Marketing, RIBA awards, London;
• Rosario Talevi, Curator Making Futures Bauhaus+ and Associate Researcher Universität der Künste, Berlin;
• Bet Capdeferro, bosch.capdeferro architecture, Girona (Winner EU Mies Award for Emerging Architects 2011).

YTAA is organised by the Fundació Mies van der Rohe with the support of the Creative Europe programme of the European Union, in collaboration with the European Association for Architectural Education (EAAE) and the Architects' Council of Europe (ACE-CAE); World-Architects as founding partner; the European Cultural Centre as a partner in Venice; the sponsorship of Jung, Jansen and Regent; and the support of USM.