Brussels launches a site and a prize for a "New European Bauhaus"

This project aims to "bring the Green Deal closer to the minds and homes of citizens," said the President of the European Commission, the German Ursula von der Leyen, who announced it in September.

The European executive kicked off a "design phase" on Monday, with a new website to collect contributions from artists, architects, engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs, students and all those interested.

It is about "giving substance to the concept", explained the European Commissioner Mariya Gabriel, in charge of Culture and Innovation, during a press conference, announcing that the new price would be launched "before the summer ".

The first edition "will focus on already existing achievements", "buildings, public spaces, practices, methods" which are "concrete illustrations of the values" of the new European Bauhaus. For the following, they will be new projects.

About ten categories for this price must be defined. Each winner will receive 30.000 euros and help to make a documentary or an exhibition, she said.

The name "new European Bauhaus" is not unanimous, however: a petition launched in the Netherlands and signed by artists, teachers and researchers criticizes it for not being "inclusive". They believe the term refers to a "very Western and Eurocentric" movement.

"The important thing is not the name, it is the concept", retorted Commissioner Elisa Ferreira in charge of cohesion and reforms. She underlined that he was referring to an interdisciplinary approach, for an "implementation as close as possible to the population of the Green Pact", around the key notions "of inclusion, sustainability and aesthetics".

This design phase should lead to the opening, next autumn, of "calls for proposals to realize the ideas of the new European Bauhaus in at least five locations in the EU Member States, through the use of EU funds at national and regional level ", according to the Commission.