The Scientific Information Center and Academic Library (SICAL) was nominated for the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award 2013. The superlibrary is amongst fifteen Polish facilities to be considered for the prize.
The SICAL (Polish acronym: CINiBA) and the other fourteen projects were chosen by the Association of Polish Architects and five independent experts specializing in contemporary architecture.
The Prize and Special Mention is awarded every two years by the Member of the European Commission responsible for Education and Culture based on the decisions of the jury.
The jury, composed of acknowledged architecture specialists, will select from all European nominations a single work to be awarded the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award and a single work by an emerging architect or team of architects, to be granted the Emerging Architect Special Mention.
The Prize will consist of the sum of EUR 60 000 and the Special Mention will consist of EUR 20 000.
According to the competition rules, the jury members will meet on two occasions. In their first session they focus on the evaluation of all the nominated projects and making a selection of shortlisted and finalist works. They visit the finalist works and immediately afterwards in their second meeting they make their decisions about the Prize Winner and the Emerging Architect Special Mention.
Apart from the SICAL project prepared by HS99, the nominations were given to three buildings designed by Katowice-based studios: KWK Promes (“Dom Autorodzinny”), Archistudio Studniarek + Pilinkiewicz (District Court and District Prosecutor’s Office in Radzyń Podlaski) and AIR Jurkowscy Architekci (Home Army Museum in Kraków).