The Caminho das Escadinhas, in Matosinhos, by Paulo Moreira, the General Silveira Building, in Porto, by Tiago Antero and Vítor Fernandes, and the Piódão Tourist Office, in Arganil, district of Coimbra, by João Branco and Paula del Río, are the three projects selected for the list from which the finalists for the prize awarded by the European Commission and the Mies van der Rohe Foundation will emerge.

The 40 works of architecture are distributed across 38 European cities in 33 regions and 20 countries, according to the organisation.

The Porto Metropolitan Area, along with the regions of Berlin, Brussels, Vienna, as well as Catalonia, Pannonian Croatia and Flanders, has the highest number of candidates for finalists, with two each. The other 26 are spread across different areas of Europe.

By country, Spain leads, with six projects, followed by Germany and Belgium, both with four, then Portugal, France and Croatia, each with three, Austria, Slovenia and Sweden with two, thus concentrating, in nine countries, almost 75% of those selected.

The remaining 11 are from Czechia, Slovakia, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania.

The Mies van der Rohe Prize is named after the architect of German origin who directed the Bauhaus in the early 1930s. After Hiltler's Nazi forces came to power in 1933, he took refuge in the United States, where he obtained American nationality, being the origin of the so-called Second Chicago School and the current Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT).

The award finalists will be announced in February, the winners will be announced in April, and the award will take place during a program taking place on the 13th and 14th of May, at the Mies van der Rohe Foundation, in Barcelona.