Port spaces constitute one of the territories where the transformation of the European city has shown more intensity in recent decades. The exhibition 'Architectures on the Waterfront' and the present catalogue are a critical reading focused on the contemporary European city in relation to water, a selection of architectures related to water that one can find in the archive of the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture Mies van der Rohe Award and that is open to multiple insights.
On four occasions, the jury of the Prize has chosen works on the waterfront as winners, key pieces in the urban development of coastal or river areas which have managed to redirect what geographer Francesc Muñoz defines as urbanalization. This catalogue gathers all the exhibited works and presents nine texts connected with the urban contexts and architectures of nine European cities: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Lisbon, Marseille, Oslo, Paris, Reykjavik and Rotterdam.