Award Architect Barbara Buser receives the Basel Culture Prize 2024

Architect and urban developer Barbara Buser has been awarded the Basel Culture Prize 2024. With conversion projects such as Unternehmen Mitte, the Gundeldinger Feld, the Alte Markthalle and currently the Tanzhaus on the Franck site, she has made a "major contribution to vibrant urban culture", the Basel government announced on Wednesday.

The jury praised Buser as a "pioneer of high-quality and sustainable building culture". With her projects, she creates meeting places and a diverse cultural life, according to the press release.

The culture prize is endowed with 20,000. Government President Conradin Cramer will present it to the architect at a ceremony in the town hall on November 18.

Born in 1954, Barbara Buser studied at ETH Zurich and then spent ten years working in development cooperation in Sudan and Tanzania. Back in Basel, she founded the Bauteilbörse project, which recycles used components. From 1996, she specialized, mostly in cooperation with Eric Honegger, in the conversion of sites, mostly former industrial areas.

In addition to the projects mentioned above, other projects include the St. Johann train station start-up center with its steam bath, the rolling mill in Münchenstein, the Hanro and Ziegelhof sites in Liestal and the Kindl site in Berlin. She founded the Kantensprung Foundation to promote urban transformation, the "Unterdessen" association for interim uses and "Zirkular GmbH" for sustainable construction, as the press release explains further.