The City Hall in Antwerp is one of the five winners of the Grand Prix of the 2025 European Heritage Awards.
The restoration and repurposing of the 16th-century city hall was recognised in the Conservation & Repurposing category. The city hall is "an icon of Antwerp Renaissance architecture" and has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1999.
"The restoration combined respect for historical authenticity with contemporary sustainability and accessibility, revitalising the building as a vibrant administrative centre and meeting place for residents and visitors," the statement reads.
The winners were honoured on Monday by the European Commission and Europa Nostra, a pan-European federation of heritage NGOs, at a ceremony at Het Huis van de Radio in Brussels.
The 30 laureates of the Heritage Awards were announced in June: the Solvay Hotel in Brussels and the Flemish Heritage Tree Project were also on the list. The jury selected five Grand Prix winners and one Audience Award winner – chosen from 24 European countries. These winners will receive a cash prize of €10,000.
In the four other Grand Prix categories, the winners were
- Secrets of the Ice - Conservation & Adaptive Reuse Glacier Archaeology Programme (Norway)
- Pro Monumenta - Preventive Maintenance of Monuments (Slovakia)
- Hedgehog's Home - Inventing a Better World (Serbia)
- Inge Bisgaard (Greenland)
The Audience Award went to the restoration of the Puerta de Alcalá in Madrid, Spain, chosen by 10,000 citizens through an online vote.
The award ceremony was the highlight of the 2025 European Heritage Summit, organised by Europa Nostra from 12-15 October in Brussels, with the support of the EU's Creative Europe programme and the Belgian National Lottery.
The European Heritage Awards are also known as the Europa Nostra Awards.
